


in which way i love you (i cannot tell you with words)

by echoesofstardust



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: (but with the realisation of Feelings™), Alternate Universe - Classical Musicians, F/M, First Time, Friends With Benefits, Smut, all the musical similes and metaphors I could squeeze in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:42:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22527280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoesofstardust/pseuds/echoesofstardust
Summary: To the world, Scott Moir is the gifted prodigy. To her, he’s her best friend.
Relationships: Scott Moir/Tessa Virtue
Comments: 59
Kudos: 193





	in which way i love you (i cannot tell you with words)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iwantthemtostay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwantthemtostay/gifts).



> This fic has been a stop-start labour of love since I first outlined the idea in a notebook sometime in June of last year, and I’m so happy I get to share it with you all. 
> 
> It’s also my humble love letter to iwantthemtostay’s fic [make my wish come true](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16688440/chapters/39881739) because I can’t express how much I love that gorgeous, heartfelt piece of writing (along with the rest of her fics!). I can never put into words exactly how that fic made me feel, but it’s one of my favourite fics to reread and always, always makes my heart joyful.
> 
> Massive thanks to lapetitemort20 and peacefulboo for looking this over for me and for all your generous feedback!
> 
> Apologies for all mistakes and inaccuracies, especially regarding musical terms. I don’t play violin personally and all I have is secondhand knowledge from the people in my life who do.
> 
> Hope you enjoy! <3

Tessa thinks she’d be able to pick out Scott playing his violin from anywhere.

Whether it’s with her eyes closed or her back turned, the melody seeping out from under a closed door or in a line-up of violinists tuning their instruments, she thinks she’d know which one’s Scott quicker than a person can blink. 

There’s something about the smoothness of his legato, the crispness of his pizzicato, the way he perfectly balances warmth and poise and confidence, and the way his first note stutters when he’s especially nervous. She’d be the only one to notice anyway.

To the world, Scott Moir is the gifted prodigy. To her, he’s her best friend.

She leans against the open doorway to the rehearsal room where Scott’s practising. His eyes are closed and he’s moving with the music. She’s never been one for musicians that overdramatise their movements, but the way Scott moves with his music has never given off artifice. When he plays, it never feels like he’s playing for an audience. It’s just him and his music, and anyone listening is just lucky that he’s allowed them a glimpse into his soul.

“Tess.” His lips curve upward into a small smile. He doesn’t open his eyes.

“Scott.” How he always knows it’s her, she doesn’t know. She pushes off against the doorframe and steps into the room. 

He finishes the piece, savouring the final note and letting it linger before opening his eyes and grinning at her. “Hi.”

She smiles stupidly back. “Hi. Paganini, right?”

“Paganini’s Caprice No. 24.” He holds his violin and bow in one hand, the other running through his hair until it’s sticking up in tufts. “The left hand pizz still gets me sometimes.”

And that’s so typical of Scott. No matter how many thousands of people he’s performed in front of, no matter how many critics have sung and belted and harmonised his praises, he still doesn’t see himself as a gifted musician, the ‘once-in-a-generation’ talent that he’s so often called. The highest praise he’s given himself is that one time he admitted that maybe he’s a  _ decent _ musician on a good day.

It’s both frustrating and endearing and she adores him all the more for it. She’s taken it as a duty to remind him how good he actually is, even with the things he thinks are his mistakes.

“Show me?” she asks. He does, and she listens carefully. Any other listener wouldn’t notice a thing but she thinks she knows what’s bothering him. “It’s that one note, isn’t it? As your left pizz starts. You’re just—”

“—a little off on the timing. I come in too late.” It’s maybe a millisecond too late, and the only reason she notices is that she’s learned to become attuned to Scott’s level of perfectionism.

“You know what I’m gonna say, right?”

“That no one’s going to notice,” he says dryly. “But  _ I’m _ going to,” he whines and she’s transported back years to when they first met, her at nine and him at seven. Two little kids with big dreams. Sometimes, Scott’s still that seven-year-old boy, especially when he’s being difficult like this.

She pokes him on the side of his head. “You just need to put less pressure on yourself.” He leans in a little to her touch and she flattens her palm, her thumb rubbing the space behind his ear.

“I know.” He opens his eyes all of a sudden and stares at her suspiciously. “What actually brings you here, T?”

She blushes, having been caught. “Well, you remember the fundraising dinner that I told you about weeks ago?” It was for a music therapy organisation whose community programs she’d volunteered in since undergrad, and Scott’s gone to several of these with her. He groans and she shushes him. “The one that you agreed to accompany me to?”

“Yes? Are you sure I agreed?”

“Definitely.” She nods.

“But Mrs Hahndorf is gonna be there. She’s gonna ask again when you and I are gonna have ‘the cutest babies’,” he complains. She snorts at remembering the frank older lady. No amount of protests from her or Scott can dissuade her plan.

“So…?” she prompts.

“I’ll be there, T. You know I’ll never say no to you,” he winks, shifting his violin onto his shoulder. 

She shakes her head, calling out, “You better be!” as she’s walking out the practice room. 

Their friendship and their banter is a familiar duet, a call and response. There's no one who understands her melody quite the way Scott does.

–

He’s fiddling with his tie when she finds him.

“Stop fiddling,” she chastises him, although a smile plays at her lips because no matter how many suit-and-tie events they’ve attended he’s still uncomfortable.

“I just—” he tugs at the knot, “—can never do the knot right.”

She rolls her eyes, her hands already reaching up to undo his haphazard knot and redoing it with practised ease. The number of times she’s had to do this, honestly. She quickly slips the end of the tie through the looped part at the front, cinching it and smoothing her hands across his shoulders. 

"There." She pats his chest twice. 

Scott smiles down at her, the beginnings of a thank you forming on his lips but his gaze focuses on something just past her, eyes widening. "Mrs Hahndorf!" 

Tessa's eyes widen much in the same way as Scott's, stepping back to put as much space as reasonably possible between herself and him. Oh god, she's just given Mrs Hahndorf more ammunition. 

"Tessa! Scott! It's good to see you, my darlings." She gives them hugs that are a little too tight. Tessa covers her laugh when Scott squeaks as Mrs Hahndorf hugs him. The older lady wasn't a mean soul, not at all, just a little too nosy for both their liking. 

"Good to see you too, Mrs Hahndorf," Tessa smiles brightly, hoping it still looks genuine to the other lady. She pinches Scott's side and he yelps, “It’s so lovely to see you again. How are you?”

Small talk flows between the three of them, Mrs Hahndorf eventually turning the topic towards fashion choices. "I love your dress, Tessa! You look absolutely gorgeous. Don't you think so, Scotty?"

Tessa can see Scott smother his wince at the loathed nickname with a practiced smile. "She does! She always does," he says with an arm around her waist, hugging her to him, looking down at her with the sweetest smile. 

It's moments like this where she feels the luckiest person in the universe to have him as her best friend. 

It's also moments like this when she wants to whack him because he's also giving Mrs Hahndorf even more reason to confirm her hypotheses about them—the silver-coiffed lady smiling at them like the proverbial cat that’s gotten the canary.

Three. 

Two. 

One.

“You two would make the cutest babies, I keep telling you!” she comments, on cue, making Tessa want to roll her eyes but she doesn’t. It’s practically an inside joke at this point for her and Scott, something they’ll laugh about later in a secluded corner over a shared bottle of wine.

“Speaking of cute babies,” Scott diverts the conversation, “how are your grandkids? I know you mentioned you had a newest addition recently. Little Harold?”

“Ah, yes! My newest grandson! He is the most adorable little thing. The biggest blue eyes and rosy red cheeks…” Mrs Hahndorf has been sufficiently distracted. She’d give Scott a high-five if they weren’t currently in this setting. And if she didn’t think they’d miss. Honestly, even with all these years between them, they still can’t nail a proper one, their hands always missing each other.

As she watches Scott genuinely ‘awww’ at the photos Mrs Hahndorf is showing him from the phone she’s whipped out, she concedes that Mrs Hahndorf is partially right on one thing. Scott would make cute kids, and he’d dote on them and spoil them and just be the best dad. She’s seen him work with the little ones on the violin, how patient and kind he is with them.

She makes a mental reminder to pester him about that girl he asked out a while back, purely on her indelible right as his best friend to be nosy about his love life.

–

Scott hadn’t been expecting Tessa’s question when she asks it.

He’d been proofreading a part of her research proposal when she’d asked it with that conspiratorial twinkle in her eye.

(He still remembers when she was trying to figure out her research area, and when she’d told him she decided to focus on studying musicians, particularly those labelled as ‘gifted’ in childhood, specifically their mental health and the necessary supports they need to have a sustained and successful career. He’d been left in awe because that’s the type of person Tessa is: she’ll do anything she can to make the world better for the people that she loves.) 

“So...how are things with you and Cassandra?” She’s got her chin on her hands and a mischievous grin on her face. “You mentioned asking her out, right? You haven’t filled me in on the details yet, Moir.” She flicks his nose and he bats her hand away.

“I am trying to help you with  _ your _ work, Virtch. At least try to help me,” he points out, before answering her question. “I did ask her out. And she said ‘yes’.” He’s perfectly aware that he should be recounting this with more happiness and Tessa must think so too, because she’s getting that frown between her eyebrows that she gets whenever she thinks something’s gone wrong but she doesn’t yet know what.

“And I took her out on a date to that restaurant you said was good?” Tessa nods. “It was, thank you for that. And she was great! Funny, and kind and obviously pretty. It was a great date. We went on two more.” His fingers curl around the edge of her laptop. “But—”

“But?” Tessa prompts, scooting closer to him and taking one of his hands that have tensed up in both of hers. It helps him breathe easier.

“On our third date, she kissed me as I was dropping her off at her door. And that was fine! I think. I hope she didn’t think it was bad. Do you think she thought it was bad?”

“I wouldn’t know, Scott. I’ve never kissed you,” Tessa says, dryly enough that it makes him smile. “I’m sure she didn’t,” she adds, with more seriousness.

“And she invited me in...with the obvious implication of...more.” He lets it hang in the air. “And Tess, I panicked. Honest-to-god panicked. I yelled out something between ‘goodbye’ and ‘have a nice night’—’have a nice bye’? Probably?—kissed her forehead and bolted.” 

“Oh, Scott.”

“Yeah. ‘Oh, Scott.’ is about right.” He hangs his head.

Tessa’s leaning into him completely, an arm around his shoulder, her touch and presence as soothing as a cup of hot chocolate on a winter evening. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” she says, “but do you want to tell me why you bolted? Did she make you uncomfortable?”

“No, no. She was fine and perfectly nice. But I don’t even wanna know what she thinks of me now. I think it’s just me, Tess. Because I’ve never done much of anything.”

“Which isn’t a bad thing or something to be insecure about,” Tessa jumps in, determination shot through every single word. “I mean it, Scott. Just because you’ve…”

“...never had sex?” He snorts.

“Yes. Just because you’ve never had sex doesn’t make you any less of a man or any less of a person despite what stupid standards society makes you believe in, okay?”

She hugs him tighter. “You’ve got the kindest heart, so much love to give, exceptionally talented but still humble to a fault, not to mention devilishly handsome,” she winks at him and he laughs, “Any girl would be lucky to date you, Scott. If they judge you for that, they’re not worth it. Fuck them.”

Prim and proper Tessa Virtue swearing will never not make him laugh. Not because she doesn’t do it often—he’s probably one of the people she’s comfortable swearing like a trucker in front of—but because it’s one of the things that the rest of the world doesn’t get to see. It’s an honour he doesn’t take lightly.

“I thought the point was not to fuck them.”

She shoves his shoulder. “You get my point. Now, finish proofreading for me because I know you still several hours’ practice to get through today.”

He doesn’t disentangle himself from Tessa, just turns her laptop screen on again. “Thanks, T. I love you, you know that?”

“I know,” she replies entirely too smug. She leaves him hanging for a beat before telling him, “I love you, too.”

–

In hindsight, maybe he should’ve thought this through more. 

Because if he did, then he wouldn’t be faced with a best friend determined to get whatever he wanted to say out of him, even if it takes every ounce and inch of the persuasive tactics that she has in her arsenal. If he spent just a minute more thinking about it, maybe it would’ve dawned on him that this was absolutely An Idiotic Idea.

But he didn’t, so now he’s here.

“Just tell me, Scott. What’s the important thing you wanted to ask me?” Tessa’s got her green eyes narrowed and fixated at him, like an archer about to fire a deadly bullseye.

“You know, maybe it’s not that important after all!” He deflects, feet shuffling like he’s dancing on hot coals as he’s searching for an exit.

“Scott,” she says softer, “it’s me. You can tell me anything, you know that right?”

“I do. It’s just. A stupid idea.”

“And I’ve heard your fair share of those.”

“Then you don’t need to hear another one,” he grins at her, about to walk away when she grabs his wrist.

“Scott.”

“Okay, but you have to promise we’ll still be friends even after I tell you,” he bargains half-heartedly, even though he’d understand perfectly if she severs their friendship once she wrangles the words out of him. 

Tessa rolls her eyes, holds her arms criss-crossed, pinkies sticking out. They may be well into their twenties but they’ve carried this from when they were wide-eyed little kids. “I promise.” When he still doesn’t move, Tessa reassures him, “Pinky promises are eternal. You know neither of us take it lightly.”

“Okay.” He links his pinkies with hers, forearms crossed as well.

“Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Bach. You know I’ve always got your back!” They shout together, dissolving into giggles because how are they actual adults again?

“Now, what do you need to ask me?”

His heart thumps in his chest. “You know what we were talking about a couple days ago?”

Tessa’s forehead wrinkles in thought. “About...whether Shostakovich or Rachmaninoff would win in an MMA fight?”

“No, about Cassandra. And dating. And all that stuff. And I was thinking...it’s not the first time a date I’ve been on has gone bad because I get in my head about not having any experience. And I  _ know _ it’s not a bad thing, it’s not. But I can’t help but think I’d be more comfortable if I did. Have experience. And I know I can’t just find someone random, that I can’t have sex with someone who I don’t care about or who I don’t trust.”

He takes a deep breath. “Tess, I care about you. And I trust you.”

The realisation dawns on her face, clear as a perfectly-pitched note. “Scott, you’re asking me if…” Her mouth opens and closes, and opens and closes, and yep, this is how he wrecks the best thing in his life. “...if I’m gonna.” And because she’s Tessa and she’s not going to bullshit him even if he’d rather she did. “Have sex with you.”

She stares at him like he’s sprouted three heads. And his mind helpfully pipes up that Tessa’s probably always thought of him like a little brother and now he’s gone and made everything as awkward as he can.

“Yeah.” He reaches for the back of his neck, rubbing his neck awkwardly, feeling his cheeks blaze a deep shade of red. “And I know it’s a really stupid idea. Sorry.” He tentatively reaches for her hand, breathes a sigh of relief when she lets him. “I’m so sorry. It’s a dick move to ask you like that. You don’t deserve that, Tess.”

She smiles softly, pulls him in to hug him even though he doesn’t deserve it. “Scott. It’s okay. You haven’t lost me. Promise. Just...caught me a little off guard.” She pulls back abruptly, holding him by the shoulders. “There’s something else you’re not telling me.”

Leave it to Tessa to know. “Just something else that’s stupid. It doesn’t matter.” He waves her off.

“Scott.”

He sighs, defeated. “I overheard something I shouldn’t have. After the last competition.” It hurts to recall, like a bruise that’s repeatedly poked. “I heard Cassandra talking to her friend. About me. And how awful our dates were.”

“That bitch.”

He looks up at her in surprise and she giggles. “I know, I know. I shouldn’t call other women bitches. It undermines feminism, girl power, et cetera. But no one hurts my best friend, okay! Seriously. No. One. And I know you’d do the same for me.”

He would, one hundred percent. He still remembers punching one of Tessa’s particularly asshole-ish boyfriends, who decided to freely brag about what he’d done with Tessa in front of all his friends. He’d broken his right hand a week punching before an international competition he’d won several years in a row, and left him unable to play, but he’d make the same choice over and over again. 

He’ll always choose Tessa.

“I would.” He hugs her tighter. “Thanks, T.”

“And I’ll do it.”

“You’ll do what?”

“You.” A wry smile twists her lips. “If you really think it’s gonna help you. I know you’ll do anything for me, Scott. I’ll do this for you.”

Now it’s his turn to stare at her in shock, mouth agape. “You’re—actually sure?”

She nods. “Yes. I’m sure.” She stands up straighter, raising an eyebrow. “So, what do you actually want to happen?”

“I dunno, to be honest,” he admits sheepishly, “I think I barrelled through with the question without thinking it through. But, I just want to learn as much as I can. From you. I promise to be a very good student, Ms Virtue.” He winks at her, teasing.

She gasps. Bites her bottom lip, the shade of her green eyes darkening.

“I’ll hold you to that promise,” she says, breathless. She clears her throat. “I know you’re busy being one of the most internationally renowned violinists and all, but I think I know your sched pretty well. I’ll plan around it and let you know?”

“Sure. Sounds like a plan.” He grabs her hand, kissing her knuckles, then presses it over his heart. “Virtch, I’ll owe you forever. My first born, even.”

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t thank me yet. This could turn out to be a disaster.”

–

It took her by surprise. It really did.

Sex and Scott had just never existed in the same mental compartment. It’s not that she thinks of Scott as a little brother—the way she thinks of Scott is different from the way she thinks of her siblings. He’s more than just any friend, more than family that she chose; more like a soulmate if she was one of those people who believed in them instead of being someone who rolls her eyes at fanciful, romantic notions.

But if the path that people take through life are like intersecting lines, then she’s so grateful that hers intersected with Scott’s.

For a moment, she’d gotten this vision of waking up next to him, all sleepy smiles and rumpled hair; this perfect, idyllic picture that she’s never thought of before accompanied by this ache in her chest.

An ache like it’s something she wants. 

But—that can’t be it. This is Scott. This isn’t what they are to each other. And yet—

Impossible things have a tendency to become possible at the most unexpected of times.

She could’ve said no. Scott would’ve understood. It’s not like the request was based on feelings or attraction that would’ve led to a broken heart. He said it himself—he trusts her, and they obviously care about each other. It’s love—just not the usual romantic or lustful kind that accompanies sexual endeavours.

And she should’ve known about Cassandra! There was something a little off when she first met her, but it was such a tiny gut feeling that she didn’t have any evidence to back herself up on, so when Scott had confessed to wanting to ask her out, she’d quashed the feeling down, sure she must’ve gotten it wrong.

She feels a small measure of guilt. If she’d told Scott, then maybe he wouldn’t have been hurt.

All she can do now is plan well so that these...lessons? Is that what they’re calling them? So that he gets what he wants out of these lessons. She’s seen what he’s like when he’s focused and concentrated and it doesn’t take much to daydream about that sort of dedication aimed towards her and her body—that she’d return manifold. As a violinist, he’s obviously good with his hands. She wonders what else his hands would be good at.

It should feel weirder, thinking about Scott in this way that’s starting to make her want to squeeze her thighs to alleviate the ache. It should feel weirder, but it doesn’t.

Maybe it’s because everything is still the same as it always was. Just with this additional favour. It’s not the first time either of them have asked a favour of the other—it’s one of the byproducts of having more than a decade long friendship. That’s why nothing feels weird. It’s just Tessa-and-Scott, as always.

There’s a knock on her door and it startles her. She’s not expecting anyone at the moment except—

Scott. Who she finds when she opens her door.

“You knocked?” she says by way of greeting. “You always just use your spare key.”

“I know. It just felt weirder to do it...knowing what we’re gonna do.” His throat bobs, giving away his underlying nervousness. “Oh! And I don’t know what the etiquette is for our...lessons, but I brought you roses.”

“Roses?” she wrinkles her nose. Which she immediately feels guilty about because she shouldn’t look ungrateful for any of Scott’s efforts! Especially when he’s just trying to be sweet.

“Not the flowers, T. I  _ do _ know you,” he laughs, taking out his hands from behind his back to reveal his present. “The chocolates!”

She giggles, taking the box from him. She should’ve known. Of course he knows her. “Right,” she rises on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek, “thank you.”

“If I was giving you flowers, you know I’d get you peonies, your favourite,” Scott adds.

She moves out of her doorway to let him in. “I shouldn’t have doubted you.” She walks to her living room where she’s got their coffees on her coffee table. Milk and two sugars for him, black for her. 

And also her yellow legal pad on which she’s been brainstorming that she’s forgotten to put away. Scott sits down and grabs the pad immediately which makes her cry out and make a grab for it. “Scott!”

“Uh, Tess. Your curriculum is,” he coughs, “very detailed.”

She grabs it from his grasp. “It’s just—brainstorming.”

Scott takes her hand in his, rubbing his thumb across the back of it. “I’m just teasing, T. I trust you.” He offers her an easy grin, wiggling his eyebrows, “What do you actually have planned today?”

That’s how they end up on her bed with her sitting across from him in nothing but her underwear. She probably should’ve given him a warning before she’d started stripping when they’d entered her bedroom. He’d yelped and turned around to give her privacy, to which she’d smothered her laughter because of course he’s a perfect gentleman, except he does have to see her naked if they’re gonna do these lessons.

For today, she’s only gonna be near-naked anyway.

“Hey Scott,” she grabs his hand, running her fingers along the lines and divots of his palm. “You can look at me, you know.”

“I just—don’t want you to feel like I don’t respect you.”

He’s the fucking sweetest. She could kiss him, and she does, presses her lips in feather-light touches to his knuckles.

“We’ve consented to doing this, yeah? You’re not taking advantage of me. You can look at me.” She pauses, deciding to go for full honesty. “I want you to.”

His breath hitches and his hazel eyes finally, finally gaze upon her. She feels it on her bare skin soft as the beat of a butterfly’s wing, soft as the glow of candlelight, alongside the fiery touch of a flame. It’s heady, it’s addicting, it’s glorious.

She swallows. “The first lesson—” she clears her throat “—what I thought we’d do today is just an exercise is listening and responding.” Now that she thinks about it, she must’ve subconsciously framed it in musical terms for him. She hopes it’ll help ease him into it.

She takes his hand that she’s still holding, slowly presses it to the bare skin of her waist. His hand molds to the curve of her body like he’s done it before, like it’s muscle memory. 

“I want you to touch me, Scott. Anywhere you like.” His thumb sweeps tentatively and she gasps, sensitive. “And I want you to listen. Sometimes, your partner in bed will tell you specifically what they like. Of course, if you feel uncomfortable with what they ask, you should tell them. No one should ever force you to do something you don’t want, okay? And vice versa.”

She waits until he nods in acknowledgement before continuing. “Sometimes, they won’t tell you exactly what they like, but you can tell what works and what doesn’t based on how their body reacts, like the sounds they make.” She ducks her head, blushing. “I’m part of the latter category, sorry. It doesn’t come the easiest for me to ask specifically for what I want.” It’d been a hardship with previous partners; a source of frustration from some of them that she couldn’t come from their clumsy ministrations, nor could she voice exactly what she wanted. 

It’s an insecurity she has—that she’s too difficult, that she’s not worth sticking around for. It’s ugly voices in her head, rationally she knows that, but it’s hard to be thinking rationally all the time.

“T,” when he says her name she can’t not look at him, and his gaze is steady and unwavering, any nerves or uncertainty dissipating as he takes her hand and links their fingers together, “You’re not difficult, or a code to crack, or a challenge to conquer. You’re...Tessa. Anyone lucky enough to get to know you this way, to know what you like and how to please you? It’s their fucking privilege. Not a burden.”

How Scott could take one of her deepest insecurities, unfold them raw and soothe them with both touch and words, is beyond her. Her bottom lip trembles and she thinks she’s about to cry.

“Shit, Tess. Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry!” Scott worries as she blinks back the tears, and she giggles.

“No, you’re good. It’s just—” she searches for the right words to say but can’t find them, settling on, “Thank you.”

“I mean it.” He squeezes her hands lightly, contemplative “Do you want me to leave now? We don’t have to do this,” he gestures vaguely between them, “now. Or ever.”

She thinks about it, because she knows he means it, that with one word from her, they could walk away from this weird arrangement they’ve concocted and go on with their lives as usual.

Except she finds that she doesn’t want to.

She wants to share this with him, wants to gently take hold of his trust and not take it for granted, wants his first time and every single step leading to the first time to be good. Selfishly, she wants him to share all that with her.

So she finds herself saying, “Don’t go, please.”

And she finds herself hearing, a soft declaration from him, “I won’t.”

And she sighs, because even if it’s not something she’d thought of before, she now doesn’t want anything more than Scott in her bed.

She lets go of his hand, stretches back on the bed, can’t stop getting lost in the hypnotic depths of his irises, and whispers huskily, “Touch me, Scott.”

He’s hovering over her, his right hand planted on the mattress close to her head, one of his legs in between hers. She likes that the way his gaze sweeps over her is slow but sure and certain, blushes because he always goes back to her face like that’s where all roads lead to, with something so close to adoration that she almost can’t breathe.

Her bra and panties are plain black cotton, because this thing she’s got with Scott is far from a seductive ploy that calls for the laciest of her lingerie. It’s like she doesn’t need to be wearing anything prettier, though, given by the way his breath hitches.

She’s so sure that he’d start touching her breasts first, because that’s what boys seem to do and while Scott is probably the best guy she knows, he’s still a  _ boy _ . 

Which is why she’s surprised when he touches her hands first, turns her hand over palm-up, grazes his fingertips back and forth on her skin, follows the lines criss-crossing, tracing circles and stars and spirals. His callouses on his left hand from playing the violin are glorious against her sensitive, hyperaware skin. The more he touches, the more she craves.

Something halfway between a gasp and whimper flutters out of her as he traces the sides of her fingers, drawing back up, continuing his delicate yet torturous journey up her arm, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake.

Scott’s always had a knack for figuring out the nuances of the music he plays, turns of phrase that he highlights or subdues that magically lifts the entire piece.

He figures out the nuances of her body now. She watches how this line appears on his forehead in a not-quite frown as he catalogues every single spot he finds that makes her whimper or her breathing stutter. Fuck, Scott could actually be the death of her.

His fingertips—he dances them along her collarbone, down her sternum, not brushing either of her breasts, his hand spanning half her waist as he splays it across. The light pressure of it resting there, combined with the way he catches her belly-button ring in a move she’s not sure is even entirely deliberate, draws out something closer to a moan.

“Scott.” 

He’s touching her jaw, her cheek, her cheekbone, her forehead. Logically, he’s only touching her in five places at any one moment—the pads of his thumb, index, middle, ring and pinky fingers—but the feeling of his touch lingers all over. She feels more alive than what she’s ever felt before.

“Please,” she whispers, “kiss me.” She doesn’t mean to sound needy or desperate but she is, and she’s afraid to ask again, afraid that she’s asked the wrong thing, because yes, they’d agreed to sex but sex doesn’t necessitate kissing; at least, not the kind of kissing that feels far, far too close to the feeling of being—

His lips are on hers, gentle but firm, and he deepens it the moment she lets out another sound, kissing her with this confidence and surety that never demands but just gives. Fuck, Scott can kiss. She could let him ravish her mouth for as long as he wants.

She burns, she longs and she wants. She takes his hand and brings it down to her breast, molding his hand with hers until he’s brushing her hard, aching nipple. “Please,” she whimpers, “touch me.” It will marvel her later how easily the request falls from her lips, but maybe she should always have seen that things would be different with Scott.

“You sure, T?”

“Yes. Please, oh…” He does as she’s asked, his touch tentative at first but encouraged by the keens she utters in the little space between them. Even with how good it feels, she just wants more. She tries to prop herself up, enough to unclasp her bra, tug it down her arms.

“Tessa.” It’s so rare for Scott to say her full name. When he does, it’s often in mock-reprimand or to tease. Not now. Not when he says it like it’s the greatest secret he’ll ever hear.

“Scott, please.” She cups his hand over her, moans as he rubs her again.

“What do you need, Tess? Can you tell me?”

Her hesitation is there but it quiets when she focuses on him looking at her. “Can you...can you take your shirt off?”

It’s off before she knows it, his bare chest against hers and she relishes in the feeling of it. He’s lean but solid and she finds herself stupidly asking, “Where the fuck do you find the time to work out, Scott?”

He laughs into her neck. “It’s easy to find time for the things I care about.” He pushes himself up, a flicker of uncertainty crosses his face, “Is this...is this okay? So far?”

“Yes,” she’s quick to reassure him, “more than okay.” She needs more.

“What else do you need?”

It feels easier and easier with each request to ask. Maybe because it feels like Scott is willing to give her anything she asks for, the earnestness in his eyes as precious as his trust. “Can you...can you put your mouth on me?” She presses her hand against her breast again, whimpering he draws circles around it experimentally. “Here?”

His only response is to do exactly as she asks. 

She’s always found confidence a turn-on, especially in the bedroom, so a part of her had wondered how these lessons would be affected by that, if Scott’s inexperience and the apprehension that would understandably come with that would mean that they wouldn’t click. 

It’s not the case though. Scott starts out slow and careful, maybe tentative, but not in a way that makes him seem unsure—rather, it’s like he’s taking his time figuring out what she really wants. Because she feels the shift the moment something clicks, how his hands and mouth become more firm and sure, always in a way that keeps her wanting more.

His mouth is hot and wet, tongue licking her firmly. She arches her back with a cry when he sucks. She ruts against his thigh that’s still pressed deliciously against her core, moaning his name brokenly.

“Fuck, Tess,” he switches his mouth to her other breast, his hand returning to play with the one he’s just left. He presses his thigh harder against her, and she rolls her hips harder against him. She’s fully aware of his hardness against her hip. She’d half a mind to shift positions, wrap her legs around him so that his cock’s against where she’s wantonly aching and wet, grind against him that way because, god, she’s so fucking close—

Except she doesn’t need to because he’s moved his hand under her ass, pressing her up against him at the exact right moment she grinds against him just so, his mouth still hot and intent and fucking perfect and—

That’s all she needs. She’s fallen, catapulted, soaring. Mouthing his name as she comes, one hand in his hair, the other fisted into her sheets.

She opens her eyes, breathing heavily, to Scott’s soft, awed, proud smile. Like he can’t quite believe he made her come. But he did, and it felt fucking amazing and she wants that for him too. Right now.

So she dips her hand in between them, stroking him over his pants and the groan he gives her is something she wants to hear over and over again. “Can I take these off?”

He nods, shucking them off as quick as he can. She tries not to laugh as he gets tangled up but he looks at her and they both lose it and she finds that she loves that they can still share laughter in this place they’ve never been before.

Until she wraps her hand around him for the first time and he stutters into her palm, a cacophony of sounds dripping from his mouth like his tip leaking pre-come, which she spreads as much as she can as she strokes him slick. He’s hard and hot and she’s entirely taken by the look of his dick in her hand as she varies the pressure and the speed, wanting to learn him as much as he’s been willing to know her. 

At least, until she drags her gaze to his face, everything he’s feeling unsheltered and unmasked, and that’s not something she can look away from. 

“Scott, I want—”

His eyes fly open. “What—what do you want, T?” He says it so sweetly, so gently like she hasn’t just come from grinding against him and her hand isn’t wrapped around his cock.

“I want you,” she slows down to a pace achingly slow, “to come for me.” She twists at the last second, rewarded by a groan, his hips pushing harder into her hand. 

His whole body’s tense as he hovers over her, trying to keep himself in control, but she wants him to let go. She’s seen him lost to his music, and this is similar but different, and beautiful isn’t the right word for all its connotations of delicateness and symmetry, because seeing Scott like this is far from some perfectly constructed composition.

No, his breathing is off-tempo and their sounds are dissonant, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t revel in this symphony any less.

She cups his jaw, rubs her thumb over his bottom lip as her thumb rubs the tip of his cock. “Tessa,” he moans, and she loves it when he says her name. “Mmm—m’so close.”

She takes that as her cue, pumping him with greater and greater intensity, building up to his crescendo—she wants to be the first person to make him come, to watch how his face contorts as he loses himself to utter bliss.

It’s just her name he utters when it happens, in broken fits and starts, as he empties himself over her hand, onto her stomach. She’s painted so recklessly by his come. Her pussy throbs at the thought, but she files that away to examine later, not now when her first concern is how Scott’s feeling.

He’s looking down at her and she knows that smile, weirdly. She guesses there’s a part of her that thought there’d have to be a new one after sharing this new thing together, but she knows that smile. It’s the same one from every cherished memory she’s got of him.

Like their first recital, where he’d brought her flowers at the end and kissed her on the cheek. 

That time she’d been so stressed over her finals in her last year of undergrad, and he’d reminded her how much work she’d already put in, rambling about some analogy about rice in a jar that he’d learned from a musician he looked up to. She’d woken up to a bucket near-overflowing with rice outside her dorm room, a scribbled note in his messy writing,  _ Look how much rice you have, kiddo. You’ve got this -S _

That time he’d punched one of her exes and she’d been horrified, not because of what had been said (honestly, Ryan was a dick) but because he had that important comp a week after that he’d had to pull out from. He’d had no regrets, he had told her, and she believed him. In the midst of her worry, he’d cracked a joke, some stupid pun she doesn’t even remember anymore, but she’d laughed, because she always does, and he’d given her this same smile.

“How are you feeling?” She thumbs the shell of his ear with her free hand, and he leans into her touch.

“I’m—” he takes another haggard breath, “Wow. T, that was amazing.” He blushes then, red blooming across his cheeks.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He pushes himself up a little, looks at the mess between them. “Sorry about the—” His blush deepens until he’s scarlet. 

It’s on the tip of her tongue to tell him not to be sorry, that she’d liked it, but she bites it back because that feels like too much information. She tries to reach the box of tissues she’d placed on her nightstand beforehand but it’s too far. Scott notices and grabs it, taking a bunch out and giving the box to her when she holds her hand out. 

They’ve got their clothes back on, and he’s standing in front of her, a hand rubbing at the back of his neck awkwardly. “So…” And she doesn’t like that, this awkwardness, so she stands up to hug him, the same as they always have, the kind that could last forever and she honestly won’t mind. She needs to know that nothing has changed, that she hasn’t fucked up one of the best things in her life.

He hugs her back, tight but not too much, swaying a little.

“T, you’re overthinking,” he murmurs after a while and she groans, guilty. “You were so good to me, T. I don’t regret it, I promise.”

She nods, chin against his shoulder. She’s going to trust that he’s being honest with her. “Okay.”

–

He catches sight of her before she sees him.

She’d offered to pick him up from the airport where he was flying in from his last performance in Antwerp. Between his slew of performances in Europe and her increasing workload with her Master’s, it’d been hard even catching up over the phone, so of course he’d jumped at the chance to see her as soon as possible.

He thinks of Antwerp’s historic streets, its verdant forests, all the chocolate places hidden and waiting to be found and he resolves to take her there someday. He’s sure she’d love it, can picture the way her eyes would light up at every single detail.

He’s got his luggage, including his violin, wheeling it all towards her. She’s looking around in all the wrong directions, but then she pauses. Whips her head around to see him. Gives him the biggest grin and runs towards him.

His arms are waiting for her to jump into them. It’s cheesy and they could give rom-coms a run for their money but he and Tessa have heard every variation of ‘are you sure you’re not dating?’ by now from well-meaning relatives to complete strangers.

All he’s ever known about dating is how complicated it easily gets. How he feels like he always has to put up a front and his best foot forward. What he has with Tessa is the furthest thing from complicated. He knows her and she knows him. Sure, they’ve argued and fought, but they’ve always worked it out. And he’s never had to feel like he has to someone he’s not.

So, no. He’s not dating Tessa.

“Hi,” she murmurs into the collar of his jacket.

“Hey, T.” He squeezes her once, twice. “Miss me?”

He’s prepared for her to crack a joke like she usually does, but she just says, soft, “Yeah.” She’s usually only vulnerable like this when she’s had a tough week and he’s immediately concerned.

“How are you? Really?”

She sighs, burying her head further into the fabric of his jacket. “Just a little stressed. Nothing major.”

“Let me know if I can help with anything?” He knows he’s not the easiest person to get ahold of, but if she needs him, he’s gonna do anything in her power to make time for Tessa. 

"I will." She lets go of him and grabs the handle of the trolley to his protests. "Let's get you home."

He manages to finagle it back from her. Tessa's strong, he knows, but he's not gonna let her push his things around when he's perfectly capable. He convinces her that the best thing she can do is keep him company and regale him with stories of what's happened while he's been away. 

Once she's dropped him off, he's lucky enough to convince her to stay at his for a little while more, because, selfishly, he has missed her a whole lot. 

Giving her free rein of his Netflix probably played a part in that. Plus bribing her with food. He can't cook her anything because he doesn't have food at home from being away, so he orders Thai takeaway (her favourite).

“Princess Bride?” She asks. One of his favourites. The twinkle in her eyes tells him it’s the reason she’s picking it.

“Sure, kiddo.” She rolls her eyes when he gives her that nickname, because he’s technically younger than she is. Not that it’s ever stopped him. “The food will be here in fifteen.” He collapses beside her into his couch, letting out a deep sigh. His exhaustion is catching up to him.

“Are you sure you want me here? I can leave if you’re too tired.” Tessa unfolds her legs like she’s about to stand up and he shakes his head.

“No, stay. Please. You promised me Princess Bride, and you’re seeing that through.”

“Okay, okay.” She tucks her legs up, hugging her knees and facing him. “And I haven’t told you yet how well you’ve done. I watched all the recordings I could find of your performances on youtube.”

He winces, thinking of that one performance that he’d messed up.

“Scott,” Tessa brings him back to the present, “you did wonderfully. You really...when you play, I feel it here.” She’s got a hand over her heart. “Maybe it helps that I’ve known you for so long, but that’s not something every musician has. You need to stop beating yourself over all the things you think are mistakes. No one notices them. Especially if the comments are anything to go by.” She shakes her head.

“Why? What’s in the comments?” 

“They’re so thirsty! They don’t even talk about your flawless technique or your musicality. All they talk about are your arms,” she huffs.

“Really? Tell me more,” he teases her. She glares at him, daring him to tease her any more, and it’d be intimidating if it didn’t remind him of Tessa at nine, with a violin too big for her, but that she played the most intricate of pieces on anyway. 

She’s far more talented than what she gives herself credit for, always quick to talk about him and everything he’s achieved. He’s always thought that she would have accomplished more than he did had she decided to keep on pursuing music. She’d decided to use her very big brain to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in psychology instead. He’ll always support her the way she’ll always support him.

He laughs, reaching for the remote to turn his TV on, navigating to his Netflix and finding ‘The Princess Bride’. He holds his arm out for her to tuck herself under and she glares at him for another second before scooting in.

“You know you’re my number one, right? No matter what those youtube comments say.”

There’s a stretching pause between them, making him reconsider that maybe he’s said the wrong thing, but she leans her head on his shoulder, saying “I better be.” Her tone is light and teasing, but it cracks just a little that hurts his heart.

“You are.” He’s sure that she’s had the same worries that he has; that with time, their friendship will drift apart as the other moves on to bigger and better things. She’d be mad at him if she ever hears his thoughts, he knows. If the tables were turned, he’d be devastated if he found out that she thinks he’s better off without her. 

He touches her cheek softly, tips her chin up, intending to repeat his words. Except he gets lost in her green, gorgeous green eyes and loses all words he meant to say. He’s not sure how much time passes in the in-between.

All he’s certain of is the loud ring of his doorbell, announcing that their food’s arrived.

It’s like he’s surfacing from underwater, has to blink and shake his head as he stands up, murmuring something about getting the food. It’s a haze as he’s paying the delivery guy, but by the time he’s back in his living room, Tessa’s smiling and rolling her eyes the same as always, gesturing at him to give her the food already.

There’s nothing weird. No, not at all.

(Except there’s a moment where Tessa moans at her first taste of pad thai and his brain assaults him with the very vivid memory of her making that exact same sound laid out under him, the smooth expanse of her freckled skin bare and warm to his touch, but he quickly stops that train of thought. He’s not making things weird.)

She falls into him once they’ve polished all their food, her head on his shoulder and her attention rapt as Inigo Montoya and Dread Pirate Robert’s swords parry and thrust in their intricate dance. He swears that for Tessa, watching anything is like watching it for the first time. 

She’s teary by the time they get to the end, and when she notices him noticing her, whispers, “Shut up,” and he puts his hands up.  _ I haven’t done anything _ , he means without words. She huffs as she wipes her eyes with her sleeve (of one of his hoodies that she’d ended up borrowing because she runs far, far too cold).

He looks at the time. It’s gotten a lot later than what he thought Tess would stay for. He watches her yawn, stretching out, looking so soft and worn-out and sleepy. He doesn’t want to risk her driving home this fatigued.

“Hey, T,” he begins. He knows the words he wants to say, but they don’t feel quite right when he thinks to say them. Or, the problem is that it feels right, but it feels like something that should be wrong but it isn’t, like a particular phrasing that his old violin tutors used to tell him to do, but he thought his own interpretation was better.

And just like back then, he barrels on. “Do you want to stay?”

She tenses, just a fraction, but it’s him and it’s her and he knows. “The night?”

“Yeah. Only because I don’t want you driving home tired. And it’s my fault that you did, because you, y’know, picked me up from the airport.”

She ponders it, biting her bottom lip. “Okay. I will. Thank you.”

“You wanna take my bed? I’ll take the couch.”

“I’m not kicking you out of your bed! We can just sleep together.” Her eyes widen. “Next to each other, I mean. I don’t mean—”

“I got that, Virtch,” he chuckles. She fiddles with the sleeves of her (his) hoodie, trying to smile. He touches her elbow, lets his hand move back and forth, until she looks up at him, a hint of guilt still in the crease of her eyes. “You’re not making me uncomfortable.” Tension seeps out of her. “It’ll be just like one of our sleepovers from when we were kids.”

Before they got too old and their families thought it was too inappropriate. That they’d get up to who-knows-what, and it used to confuse him because he and Tessa are a lot of things (best friends, partners-in-crime—soulmates, if he’s feeling particularly sentimental). And yes, he had a crush on her the way little boys do when they’re faced with a talented, pretty, kind girl, but it’s far from what they are now.

(Okay, okay, maybe he’ll always be a little in love with her, but he’s sure that everyone who meets her falls a little in love with Tessa Virtue. It’s just the way she is.)

He wonders what their family would have to say now. Scratch that—he wonders what their family would have to say about his and Tess’ agreed arrangement. Jordan probably knows, because she and Tessa tell each other everything. And the moment Jordan knows, that means his brothers will know, because nothing goes unshared if it concerns both him and Tessa.

That’s fine. They won’t make it easy and they’ll definitely interrogate him, but he can handle their siblings. It’s their parents finding out that will be—a bridge to cross if they get there.

For now, though, he tells her to dig through his closet for something to wear to bed, finds her a spare toothbrush and she laughs at all the boxes of toothpaste in his bathroom cabinet (they were on sale, okay? He panic buys, she knows that).

He huffs, and she’s sleepy enough to press a kiss to his cheek before sidling in front of him to get to the sink, and he’s sleepy enough to let her, even as the place where her lips touched his skin burns like an ember. He’s sleepy enough not to analyse why.

She doesn’t ask which side is his, just gets in on the right. It makes him laugh because this is Tessa, polite to a fault, and it’ll probably horrify her when she realises this in the morning. She must be so tired though, and he doesn’t regret asking her to stay. He wouldn’t forgive himself if she got into an accident because of him.

The left side of the bed is his, anyway.

She’s out the moment her head touches the pillow, dark hair fanned out, a hand tucked under her cheek.

“Night, T. Sweet dreams,” he whispers. A soft snore escapes her like an answer. He laughs, presses his lips together because he doesn’t want to wake her.

–

She wakes up to his rumpled hair and sleepy smile, and it feels like a moment in a memory she doesn’t have; like déjà vu except she definitely hasn't been here before. 

"Morning," he says, all low and soft. 

"Morning." They’ve woken to space between them. Not a lot, maybe two hand width’s wide. She wonders why it feels a lot wider than what it is. She doesn’t think about why it feels that way. 

She’s still trying to blink her sleepiness away even as he’s already getting up, and before she knows it, she’s shifted her hand closer to him. She sucks in a breath, unsure about what she’s just done, what it means.

Scott doesn’t give her much time to overthink and over-analyse, though, when he reaches across and grabs her hand, slotting their fingers together easily, squeezing lightly.

“Breakfast?” He asks, grinning like he already knows the answer. 

She huffs, although a smile is fighting to break through. Of course, he knows the answer.

Of course, he knows her. 

–

Out of all the things that Tessa did not see coming because of this—thing with Scott, even with the handful of times they’ve now shared this place, let it be known that this particular afternoon is one of them.

(She’d really like to find a better term for whatever their agreement or arrangement is. It’s too many opposing things all at once. Feeling like something that should be a dirty little secret, but it doesn’t when Scott touches her with something akin to reverence, to adoration. Feeling like something that should be a casual hook-up, except it’s with someone who knows her better than she knows herself.

When there’s too many irreconcilable sides, she’d much rather just focus on Scott.)

She might have seen coming the way he’d kissed her soft and slow. She might have seen coming the way he’d taken his time taking off the layers of clothes she’s wearing after she’d nodded that he could. She might have seen coming the way he had lingered on the emerald-green lace of her underwear, that she’d picked because, if pressed to admit it, she’d wanted to wear something that would elicit this exact reaction from him.

She might have seen coming the way his hands, and then his mouth, slowly map out her body, seeking all the places he’d discovered prior, the softest whimpers escaping her.

She would not have seen coming the way he whispers, more sinfully than he had any right of being, “Can you show me, Tess? Show me how you touch yourself?”

“What?” she asks in a daze.

“Show me,” his hands mold to the gentle, barely-there curves of her waist, her hips, “how you make yourself come.” His mouth ghosts over her stomach, the warmth as he’s talking making her shiver. “I wanna make you feel good. Can you show me?”

She has to take a second to look at him, sure that surprise must be etched on her features, along with a whole lot of  _ want _ . She’s never done this before, touched herself in front of a partner without them taking part, and it makes her feel vulnerable and exposed. But if there’s someone she’s willing to feel vulnerable in front of, it’s Scott. She thinks of the trust he’s placed in her, and it’s—not easy, per se, but she’s willing to put her trust in him, that whatever they share in this little bubble is theirs and theirs alone, nothing to be frightened or ashamed of.

It crosses her mind that there’s an end point for this, a finish line, and she thinks it sends a little pang in her chest but the ache between her thighs as Scott’s thumbs run back and forth the waistline of her panties overshadows that.

“Okay,” she nods, her breathing quickening. She lifts one of her hands, slowly to her chest. She cups her tit, brushing the curve under, circling slowly inwards, gasping when she finally brushes her hardened nipple. 

“Love the way you sound, T,” he murmurs, “wanna hear more of them. What else do you like?”

“I like—taking my time,” her voice is so much huskier to her ears, dragging her hand down her stomach, her other hand playing with her other breast. She rubs her thumb back and forth the lace of her bra, as her other hand moves over her centre, brushing against his hands.

“You like being teased?” It’s a genuine question, and he does sound confused. Which might make sense, because in most aspects of her life, she’s impatient and narrowly focused and pretty much a get-things-done-now type of person.

“I like—anticipation,” she decides on. 

He hums in understanding. “I see.” She can see him filing that away for future reference, and she’s already curling her toes in anticipation of him doing exactly that, taking his time, drawing her pleasure out, until she’s shivering and shaking and begging. 

She lets her legs open further. Scott pushes firmly on her thigh, keeping her open, and the pressure from his touch just makes her want. 

She traces over her centre, slow, wanting to trap the whimpers fluttering up her throat but choosing to let them escape because Scott had confessed to wanting to hear her. She’d tended to feel more self-conscious about the sounds she makes, but Scott’s primary language was always sound and music and everything he can hear. She understands. She’s the same way. She thinks back to Scott on that first night, wonders about all the sounds she can elicit from him, and it’s that thought that sends her dipping her hand into her panties, ghosting over her folds.

She moans, and he swears, a quiet ‘fuck’ as he watches her. “Tess,” he noses at her inner thigh, “can I...take your panties off?” Drops soft kisses, up and up. “Will you let me see you?”

“Yeah,” she breathes, "take them off, please."

He's so slow and gentle and careful, like she's a piece he's sight-reading for the first time, and he wants to make sure he gets it right. The drag of the lace temptingly slow against her skin. His murmured "Fuck, Tess, you're so pretty," like he's not staring at her cunt. His palms deliberate from her ankles to her calves to her thighs.

"Fuck Tess, you're so wet," he half-whispers, half-rasps, as she starts to rub circles around her clit, not really giving herself any satisfaction before dipping her fingers to her entrance and gathering the wetness there. She arches her back as she moves back up to rub over her clit more decisively, whimpering as she continues to play with her nipple. 

She watches Scott grind his hips into her bed, seeking pleasure for himself, and that's enough to make her push a finger inside herself, then another, opening her legs further and pushing her knees out. Scott takes the cue and holds firm to her knees, pressing down. She fucks herself at just the right angle so that the heel of her hand still rubs against her clit. 

"Scott," she whimpers, higher and higher in pitch, her movements becoming more erratic. "Scott— _ oh _ ."

"C'mon, T. You're close, yeah? Show me again, show me how pretty you are when you come," he's running his mouth in a series of torrential whispers, the almost-growl in his voice pulling her closer and closer to the edge. 

"Scott— _ ah! _ " She has to close her eyes as she comes, her pussy clenching around her fingers hard, tipping her head back as she arches her back. 

She's sure her face is flushed and her hair on the wrong side of artfully dishevelled, but she sees Scott looking at her, both awe and desire colliding, like something innocent and something decidedly not-so. 

She slips her fingers out from her cunt, about to wipe them on her thigh, when Scott intercepts her wrist. 

"Can I—taste you?" 

She nods, and he's got his lips wrapped around her fingers, sucking and licking to get as much of her juices. His hot, wet mouth, the slow drag of his tongue, and the rumble of pleasure in his chest, makes her throb. 

He’s humming as he sucks her fingers, eyes closed like he’s savouring how she tastes, and she wants and wants and wants. She moans and he opens his eyes.

“Scott, I—I want you now.  _ Please _ .”

He releases her fingers from his mouth with a wet pop. “I’ve got you, T.” He presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist, her pulse stuttering, before letting go. He moves up her body, the firm pressure of how solid he is against her softness so fucking good. He’s got his hands and his mouth on her tits, masterfully stroking and licking and sucking, and it really is amazing how quick of a study he is. 

As he kisses his way down her body, to where she’s drenched and aching, stroking light enough to tease, circling her clit but not quite touching it, mimicking everything she’s showed him she likes. She knows Scott’s a prodigy at the violin, but with the sounds he’s able to draw from her—if she was an instrument, no one’s ever played the nuances of her body in the way Scott has.

The moment he puts his mouth on her is a revelation she isn’t prepared for. She bows forward, grasping his hair, thankful his hair is just the right length for her to hold onto. “Fuck, Scott,” she swears. Scott is usually a ball of energy, bouncing from person to person, gregarious and the life of the party. Except when his attention is focused entirely on his music. And it turns out, also when his attention is entirely focused on her body.

His tongue easily follows the path laid out by his hands, licking longer and deeper as she parts her thighs shamelessly. Until he pulls back. Enough for her to cry out in protest. He’s peppering soft kisses along the inside of her thighs, moving close but not close enough.

“Scott, please,  _ please _ , just…” she trails off as he ghosts his thumb over her swollen, aching clit, moving his hand up to tease her nipple. 

“Please, what, T?” There’s enough cockiness in his tone that she can picture the exact smirk he’s got, the boyish grin imbued with mischief. At this point, part of her can’t even blame him because he’s been the best student, eager to learn, quick to pick it up, enthusiastic in applying as soon as possible.

“Please,  _ oh _ ,” she moans as he darts forward to lick her once, sucking experimentally, “I, I need you. I—just, make me come, Scott,  _ please _ .” 

He groans at her words, and she watches as he grinds into her mattress.

“Please,  _ Scott _ ,” she begs. And the plaintive note in her plea must break him.

He surges back, dives in and laps at her in firm strokes, his nose scraping against her sensitive nub that must’ve been accidental at first, but Scott’s learned her noises and he learns to keep on doing that in tandem with his fingers and his tongue.

The moment she splinters around him is utter silence, a sob escaping her in the next moment, a string of ‘fuck’ and ‘Scott’ as she comes back to her body. She pulls on him impatiently, crashes their mouths together, moans at the taste of her still smeared across his lips, wanting to express how grateful she is that he’s rocked her world.

She has to pull back to catch her breath, reaching out to brush his sweaty hair from his forehead, trace the shape of his lips. She searches for the right thing to say, but she can’t find it. “Scott, I—” She falters, taking a deep breath.

“It was...okay?”

“More than okay,” she’s quick to interject, still a little breathless. “God, Scott, how do you just know?”

“I know you, I guess.” He bumps his nose against hers. She has to kiss him again for that, hooking a leg around his waist and rutting against him.

“Shit, Tess, hang on, I’m not gonna last long if you keep doing that.”

“Don’t want you to,” she mumbles.

“I want to, at least a little longer than a minute,” he winks at her and she allows him a brief reprieve, trying to fight a smile but not really succeeding.

"Can you go on your back?" 

He follows easily, hands settling on her hips as she straddles his lap. She can't resist moving her hips against him, the temptation too strong, but she hooks her fingers into his boxers. "Can I take these off?" 

He hums in agreement, licking her lips as she wraps her hand around his thick length. She moves lower and bends down to take him into her mouth. 

"Fuck, T," he moans, gripping her bedsheets in his hands. She releases him from her mouth, already missing the weight and musk of him, to take his hands and put them in her hair. 

"Here." She guides his hands deep into her thick strands, close to her scalp. 

"I don't want to hurt you."

She smiles, lifting herself up to kiss him briefly, once, twice, thrice. (She tries not to overthink how quickly and easily she finds it to do this.) He’s the one that deepens it, gripping her hair where she showed him. She breaks the kiss, breathless, whispers like a confession, “I like it.”

Scott groans, guttural and deep. “Okay,” he says shakily, “just tell me if it becomes too much?”

She nods, leaning back down to lick a long, wet stripe up his length. She takes his cock in her mouth again, inching slowly down his length, her tongue firm against him. She draws back up to suck at his head, before doubling down on her efforts to take more of him.

He swears and tugs on her hair, close to her head, short but firm, just the way she likes. “Tess, I—I can’t take much more.”

She licks her lips, looking up at him. “I want you to come in my mouth, Scott.”

He says something indecipherable, and she’s a little worried she’s broken him. “If you’re—if you’re sure?” She loves that he checks in.

“Mm-hmm,” she hums, “I like it.” She doesn’t give him much time after that, takes him in her mouth again, swallows around his length once she’s sure he’s on the edge and the way he says her name as he comes in a shuddering sob, eyes meeting hers—she’s heard and played numerous classical masterpieces, but nothing has ever sounded as beautiful even in its wreckage.

“T, c’mup here,” he slurs, and she’s giggling as she follows. “Fuck, I think you just destroyed me.”

“Thank you? You’ve been so good to me, Scott. I just wanted to return the favour.”

“I think you might’ve ruined me for anyone else,” he says teasingly, thumbing at something at the corner of her mouth.

She grabs his hand to lick at the bead of his come. There’s a pang of something in her chest at the thought of Scott with someone else, someone else like this, and it’s odd and out of place and she wants to ignore it so she does. She chalks it up to how she usually feels at the thought of someone else taking her place as Scott’s best friend. That’s all it is.

He kisses her again, licks into her mouth like something dirty. She wonders if he's tasting himself from her kisses, wonders if he finds it as hot as she finds tasting herself on his lips. The moan he gives her makes her think so. 

She doesn't have much more strength, so she curls up on top of him, breathing heavily but so fucking satisfied. 

His hands come up to tickle her back. "Scott!"

She tries to look affronted, but she knows she doesn't succeed from the laughter his hands coax from her. 

His arms settle warm and heavy on her back, his slow breathing warm against her ear, his hand in her hair. 

Here, she thinks, is a place where she could linger for a long, long time.

–

"Jordaaaan," Tessa whines from where she's collapsed on the floor of her sister's barre class. "Why did you put me through hell?"

“It was your choice, little sister,” Jordan sasses back from where she’s stretching. “You’ll thank me later.”

She just groans in response. Later feels like a very long time from now. She very faintly hears the ding of her phone and she pleads with her eyes for Jordan to go to her bag to grab it for her.

“Fine,” Jordan rolls her eyes. “Don’t blame me if I see something I shouldn’t be seeing!”

She shakes her head, sitting up. Jordan won’t find anything there. It’s not like she and Scott sext each other. She ponders whether that should be something she should add to their list of lessons but with their nosy siblings, it’s probably not a good idea.

But phone sex, on the other hand...that might be an idea to broach with Scott, especially when he’s off in another part of Canada, or another country. 

“Why is Scott texting you about what food he’s gonna cook you tonight?” Jordan furrows her brow as another text comes through. “Why is he asking if you’re okay to bring him to the airport tomorrow morning?”

“He’s got that comp in a few days? That he kinda needs to go to?” Tessa squints at her sister, confused.

“Tessa.” Jordan’s using that tone when she thinks Tessa’s bullshitting her, which is a dangerous sign. “If you're going to Scott’s tonight, and you’re bringing him to the airport in the morning…” Jordan’s voice gets louder as the pieces click together, “...does that mean you're staying over?”

Shit. She could try to say it’s not what it sounds like. 

But. 

It is what it sounds like.

“Are you guys...together?” Jordan asks like Tessa’s just told her the sky is actually magenta.

“No!” Tessa splutters, sitting up properly. They aren’t. Not really. She still can’t meet Jordan’s eyes.

“Tessa.”

She hesitates. “Uh, Scott and I are…” She searches for the right words to say. “He asked me if I’d help him figure out sex.” She blurts out. “And I agreed.”

“What?!” Jordan nearly drops her phone. “So you guys are...hooking up?”

“No! Well, yes?” She still cringes at the term. “Kind of?”

Jordan looks utterly flummoxed. “Since when?”

Tessa does the mental math in her head, then gives up. “Since a few weeks ago?”

“You haven’t told me? Tess, I thought we told each other everything.” Hurt underlies Jordan’s voice and Tessa understands that.

“I know. I’m sorry. I wish I told you earlier,” she hugs Jordan tight, “It’s not that I don’t trust you. I do. I just…” she sighs, “It felt like something I had to protect, you know? Like something that was just for the two of us, like our bubble. And the longer I haven’t told anyone, including you, the more I just put it off.” She pulls back, saying with as much sincerity and apology she can muster, “I’m really sorry, Jordan.”

Jordan sighs and hugs her again. “Don’t be sorry. I get where you’re coming from. I just hope that you never feel like you can’t tell me anything. I never want you to think that I’d judge you for anything, okay?”

“I know you won’t. I just...get all in my head sometimes.”

“I know you do,” Jordan says fondly, ruffling her hair. “So sparing me all the graphic details—”

“Jordan!”

“—Scott’s treating you right? He’s not hurting you?”

“No, he’s so...”

“Again, please spare me the vivid details, Tess.” Jordan interrupts her, teasing, and Tessa scowls.

“ _ As _ I was saying, he’s so...thoughtful. And pays attention.” She can’t help but bite her lip, smirking.

“Tess, whatever you’re thinking, stop that,” Jordan gestures wildly at her head. 

Tessa lets her smile turn mischievous. “Oh, so you don’t want to hear about how good he is at—”

“TESSA! Ew, ew, oh god, no!” The pair of them collapse against the wall because of all their giggling.

“So…” Tessa begins after they've both caught their breath, “you probably think this is a horrible idea, huh.” She smiles ruefully, nudging Jordan’s leg with her foot.

Jordan looks at her thoughtfully, like she can see something Tessa doesn’t, and doesn’t say anything for a while. “I don’t think it matters what I think,” Jordan starts slowly. “It matters what you think. I’m going to trust that you two know what’s going on in your weird co-dependent relationship—”

“We are  _ not _ co-dependent.”

“—and the important thing, if you want my advice, is going to be whether you’re honest with each other. Because I know how important both of you are to each other. And I’m sure you don’t want to lose that.”

“You think I’m gonna lose him?” Her voice turns small.

“No, shit, I said that wrong.” Jordan grabs her hands, taking a deep breath. “There are no guarantees in life, Tess. And all I’m saying, I guess, is that he has the power to hurt you and you have the power to hurt him. But that goes for anyone in your life. So,” Jordan shrugs with the finality of an older sibling imparting knowledge, “just be honest with him.”

–

"Scott, something's different with you." Danny squints at him as he's helping him lift shelving that Danny wanted to be installed at his house.

"What do you mean?" 

"You're…fucking glowing."

Scott knows exactly the reason why he, as Danny so eloquently put it, is 'fucking glowing'. It's all because of one green-eyed vixen with a wicked mouth who repeatedly brings him to his metaphorical death every single time they're together.

But Danny doesn't need to know that. 

He shrugs, faking as much nonchalance as he can muster. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He holds the length of timber steady so Danny can align the brackets properly.

Charlie, who’s very helpfully doing  _ nothing _ , picks up Danny’s line of interrogation. “I bet it’s a girl, isn’t it?”

The suggestion brings up Tessa vividly in his mind, fondness spreading through his chest as he remembers the way she’d burrowed closer into him when he tried to get up this morning, grumbling and half-asleep. Mornings really aren’t her best friend.

“Holy shit.” Charlie sounds like he’s had the greatest revelation of his life. “That’s your Tessa-smile.”

“My what?”

“Your Tessa-smile. You know, the one you get around her. Or thinking about her. It started when you were, like, seven, and then never really stopped. But I’m getting distracted.” Charlie looks straight at him. “You and Tessa. You’re together.”

“We’re not!” He denies, which is technically the truth and also technically not. And the way his brothers talk about it, it’s like they think he has feelings, in-love type of feelings, for Tessa.

He loves her, he loves her so indescribably much. But not like that.

(He's pretty sure. Sometimes he feels something in his chest, like an ache or a tenderness, when he looks at her, something that feels close to what they're implying, but the point stands that they're not like that.)

Both Danny and Charlie roll their eyes in perfect synchronicity. It’s something that Scott’s gotten from them about him insisting that he and Tessa are just friends, but he doesn't think it's been this bad since maybe puberty. 

"Scott, you know we give you shit for it, but you can trust us, you know. We love you both."

"Definitely Big Hands, but you're okay too, Scott."

He's thinking of shoving Charlie but he doesn't want Danny to kill him if his shelves don't turn out properly. 

"Tess and I aren't together," he says again, softer this time. 

Danny's looking at him weirdly again. "Scott," he says after a while, "Can you honestly tell us you've never done anything with Tessa?" 

He clams up, unsure what to say, especially because he knows he doesn't have a poker face. Particularly around his brothers.

His silence speaks for itself. 

"Scotty—" 

"Please don't tell me it's a bad idea," he gets out, delaying the lecture that's about to follow. He’s always going to listen to his brothers and their advice. But he also doesn't want what he and Tessa have to be tarnished by what his brothers are gonna say. 

"I won't do that. You and Tess are adults and you're in charge of what you're doing. Just…be careful, okay?" 

"I know how to use protection, Dan."

"Not just with your dick, you idiot." Charlie chimes in. "Your heart."

"You think Tess is going to break my heart." It doesn't come out like a question. 

“Or you break hers.” Danny shrugs. “It can go both ways. That’s what happens when you love someone.”

"You know I love Tess, but not in that way, right?" 

A pause. Danny and Charlie look at him like they see something he doesn't. 

"You don't have to be in love to have your heart broken," Charlie says thoughtfully.

"We know how important you and Tess are to each other. Just take care of each other. Be...honest about how you feel." There’s a heavy pause that hangs in the air.

“Hey Scott, can you lift that side just a tad higher?" Danny tells him softly, when the silence gets too loud. He complies, grateful that his brother’s going to let the topic rest for now.

Before he leaves, both his brothers give him a hug. It makes him feel like a little kid all over again. Danny ruffles his hair. “You’re a good guy, Scotty.” Scott winces at the nickname. “With a good heart. You listen to what it says, yeah?”

–

"Jordan knows," is the first thing Tessa tells him when she gets to his place. 

"So do Danny and Charlie," he replies. 

"They're gonna be insufferable," she buries her face in her hands. 

"I know," he sighs. He rests his hands on her waist. "Do you…regret doing this?" 

"No." Her response is strong and immediate. "Do you?" Her hands curl in the fabric of his sweater, eyes downcast.

He tips her chin up gently so she’s looking at him. “No, Tess. I could never regret you.”

She softens and melts against his chest, relief seeping from every part of her, and that tells him that she must have been stressing about this more than she’d let on. “Hey, talk to me, T. Tell me what’s going on in that big brain of yours.”

His teasing tone brings out the barest hint of a smile. “I just—I know how much you respect your brothers. And how much I do too. And if they told you this was a bad idea, that me agreeing to it made me a bad person, that I’m taking advantage of you—I’d be inclined to agree with them.” Her voice breaks. “I don’t want to do the wrong thing, Scott. I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“Tess,” he says softly, cups her face and kisses her forehead. “I know you never want to hurt me. But I know I’ve hurt you before, yeah? Pre-teen Scott was a pain.” There’s a brighter smile shining up at him, just like he’d hoped. “I never meant to, but I did. Just because I didn’t intend to, doesn’t take away the hurt that I caused, and it doesn’t excuse the fact that I did.”

He waits for her to nod, the frown between her eyebrows appearing when she’s trying to understand something. “We’re gonna fuck up. If not now, then tomorrow, or next week or next year. But we will, and I could hurt you. Or you could hurt me. And it won’t be okay, but I’m always gonna want to apologise and do whatever I need to to make things right.” He squeezes her hands. “And I know you will too. Because that’s the person you are.”

Tessa sobs, then, alarming him, making him think he’s said all the wrong things. But she slips her arms around his torso, crying against him. And all he can do is hold her, because it’s all she needs him to.

“Thank you,” she says, muffled against his sweater. “I will. I always will.” She sniffles, tears pooling under her eyes. “How’d you become so wise?”

“Eh, I hung around you long enough.”

She laughs, a sound like beams of sunlight. “Well, something good had to come out of me putting up with you for so long.”

He pinches her side lightly in retaliation, but he’s mostly just glad she’s laughing again. “You sure you want to stay here tonight? I’d understand if you want your space.”

“I promised I’d take you to the airport! I can’t back out now.”

“I’d figure out a way, T. You could just drop by in the morning, if you want."

“No, I want to stay, please. As long as it’s not a bother.”

“Never a bother.”  _ I always want you to stay, _ he thinks, idly, but it feels too heavy to say.

He takes her to the kitchen to start making them dinner, and she tries to help him, like always. And she ultimately gives up and tries to find music to play instead, like always. She’d stolen his phone and scrolled through his playlists, pressing shuffle on one of them. He watches as she closes her eyes to the sweeping strings and harps that begin to play.

“I like this one. What’s this piece, Scott?"

“Mahler. Adagietto, the fourth movement, from his fifth symphony. It’s beautiful, eh?”

“Yeah,” she’s swaying a little, still lost in the music. In another life, he’s sure, Tessa would’ve been a dancer. She dances now, of course, a part of her as ingrained as her love of chocolate and music and accomplishing her goals, but he’s sure there’s a universe where every time she performs, the entire universe is captivated.

There’s a flicker of a vision where he can see her dancing with a partner. There’s a phantom ache because it’s where he’s always seen himself.

He tastes what he’s making to distract himself. “You know, people say that he wrote that as a love letter to his wife.”

“Oh.” She stills. “I can hear that. There’s a lot of...longing? I think? Some sadness, too. But there’s hope, there’s joy.” She opens her eyes, which are shining with unshed tears. She’s always felt so much, and she doesn’t find it easy to share with everyone, but he loves that she trusts to share that with him. “Would you ever do that for someone? Write them a love song?”

She sounds wistful and sad.

“You know I don’t really compose?”

“It’ll take someone really special, then.” It’s not said like a question but it sounds like one.

He takes her hand, lacing their fingers together. “If all it takes is someone special to me, that means I’ll be writing something for you.” He winks, trying to make her smile.

She smiles weakly at him, drawing her hand back and leaving it on her lap. Maybe, it’s not enough to come from him?

“It should be for someone you’re truly in love with, you know?” she sighs, but straightens. “But I won’t turn down a composition from you.” There’s silence and he doesn’t try to fill it, lets her try to think through whatever’s going through her head. She wraps her arms around herself. “How’s that dish going?”

He lets her divert the conversation, even as they’re eating. He’s learned from years with Tessa that she feels most comfortable taking her time, processing things through thoroughly, before sharing what’s going on in her head with him. Sometimes he feels she’s worrying and overthinking too much and he takes it as his job to gently ask her what’s going on. Never pressuring, just concerned.

He knows he’s the opposite, more likely to blurt out exactly what’s on his mind, all energy and emotion and heart on his sleeve. He’s lucky Tessa’s there when he needs her, calm and willing to listen, grounding him.

She’s lying across from him, hand tucked under her cheek, the last position she’s decided trying to fall asleep in after tossing and turning for several minutes.

“Tess,” he touches her elbow, “you feeling better?”

She nods but he can see in her eyes that she’s not completely settled.

He lifts his arm in a wordless question and there’s a battle in her irises before she gives in, settling in close, the sigh she gives so deep that he can’t help but pull her closer, anything to offer her a better sense of peace.

“Thanks, Scott.” She peers up at him, soft smile playing at her lips. “You’re the best.”

“I’m quoting you on that in the future.” She chuckles, and he traces down the shape of her nose. “Sleep, T.”

It’s a quiet space, his bed with her. He sinks into sleep, soothed with her in his arms. It’s deep and blissful, just like the first night he’s spent with Tessa, and the next thing he knows, sunlight falling through the gaps in his curtains and he’s blinking himself awake.

Tessa’s shifted in her sleep, her back to his chest, the little spoon to his big spoon. Sleepily, he indulges himself and nuzzles her hair, smelling the faint scent of strawberries that makes him think of her whenever he has them.

He tucks herself closer against him, and that makes him perfectly aware of two things.

One, her perfect ass is pressed against him.

Two, he’s woken up hard against said perfect ass.

He jolts back from Tessa, nearly falling off his bed. “Shit,” he swears under his breath.

“Scott?” Tessa says, rubbing her eyes and propping herself up on her elbows. “What happened? It’s early still, right? You’re not gonna be late for your flight?”

“No, no. It’s early. You can go back to sleep.”

She frowns at him. “What happened though? I just woke up to you nearly falling off the bed.”

He’s sure he’s blushing scarlet to the tips of his ears. “No—nothing.”

She looks at him like she doesn’t believe him. “Scott.”

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out.

“What for?”

“I, uh…” He rips the bandaid off. It’s Tessa. Even if she teases him for it, he knows it’ll be good-natured. “Wokeuphardagainstyou.”

“What?”

“...I’m sorry I woke up hard against you.”

“Oh!” She coughs, pink blooming on her cheeks. “That’s just basic physiology. Besides, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” She says the last sentence teasingly, and he laughs, relaxing.

“Still. I’d hate it if I made you uncomfortable because of it.”

“You didn’t. Promise.” He watches her gaze dart down his body, watches her bite her bottom lip. “I can help you take care of it, if you want.”

Memories of Tessa’s perfect hands and mouth wrapped around his cock assault him all at once, and if there’s any chance of him putting a stop to his arousal it all goes out the window.

“I want to,” she adds, all husky and low, before he can ask. And that’s something he’s not built to be able to resist.

Tessa wastes no time. He swears as Tessa palms him through his boxers, hisses as she slips her hand under the material and wrapping her soft hand around him. Then her hot, wet mouth is licking and sucking him all over, moaning like sucking his cock is the best use of her morning and the way she's so clearly into it makes him harder than what he thought possible. 

"Wait, T," he grits out, tugging on her hair the way she'd showed him she likes, conscious that he shouldn't be pulling too hard or too far. 

She sucks hard at his head before releasing him with a wet pop. "What?" 

"Let me make you come first."

She pouts, and she looks far too adorable and sexy at the same time. He leans in to kiss her, loses himself to her mouth and the feeling of her against him when she's climbed on his lap. 

She rolls her hips against him indecently. “Scott.” He’s mesmerised by the greens of her eyes. “If you want...if you’re ready. Will you...will you fuck me?”

This is it. This must be how he dies.

She ducks her head down, shy all of a sudden. “I get it if you’d rather do it later, I know this isn’t planned—”

“Tessa,” he stops her rambling before she can worry herself too much again. “I want to. I’m ready.” 

They make quick work of taking each other’s clothes off, although in his haste, he gets stuck in his shirt and Tessa has to help him take it off, laughing.

Then it’s Tessa sprawled out beneath him, him between her open thighs.

“Condoms?”

He reaches over into his bedside table, finds the box he’d bought that’s still unopened.

“You know, you could’ve gotten the pack with more in it,” Tessa says, then clamps her mouth shut, flushing a beautiful shade of pink, “I didn’t mean—”

“Nice to know you have faith in my skills, Virtch. This might turn out awful and you’ll never want to do this with me again,” he jokes.

She rolls her eyes, tugging him down to kiss him. His erection brushes against her skin and he moans into her mouth. “You’re so good to me, Scott,” she says after she pulls away. “Always. I know this won’t be any different.”

Her faith and conviction, this unwavering belief in him, makes him feel more sure.

He runs a hand up her thigh first, drags his thumb over her core. She’s so fucking wet already.

“Please, Scott. I’m plenty ready, please,” she whimpers, “I need you.”

He absolutely loves it when she begs, like there’s something only he can give her, and he’ll always do anything to make her happy. Including, and especially, this.

His hands are shaky as he tears the wrapper and places the condom at his tip. But Tessa must sense and see his nervousness because her calm hands steady his, helping him roll it on his length.

He leans forward and hovers over her. “Tess.”

She touches his face gently. “Just go slow.”

He slides himself against her drenched folds first, the filthiest little moans coming from her as he rubs against her clit. Soon, his head is positioned at her entrance, and he’s pushing in slowly.

She murmurs his name brokenly and he stops, looking up at her face, worried he’s hurting her.

“Please, Scott. Keep going.”

He bottoms out inside her, and this feeling of her clenched around him, their bodies completely joined, is overwhelming and almost more than he can handle. 

“Tessa,” he groans.

She hums, tells him how good he feels inside her. He draws back, pushes forward, the sweet friction almost making him come. He’s trembling from trying to hold back.

“Tess, I’m so close,” he breathes into her neck.

“Let go, Scott,” she twines her hands in his hair, grazing his scalp deliberately, like she knows that’s his weak point.

“Don’t wanna. Want you to come first.” He pulls out completely, Tessa’s whimper at the loss of him nearly undoing him.

He lies on his back, pats her thigh as a signal to straddle his waist. “You’ll have better control from here, yeah?”

“Yeah, but you know it’s okay if I don’t come first, right? I know you’ll take care of me later,” she smiles.

“I know, but I want you to.”

She looks at him incredibly softly, something like awe in her eyes, but then she’s got ahold of him and sinking down on him in one smooth move. Fuck. The feeling of her tight and hot around him is as overwhelming as the first time.

She starts to rock down against him. “Oh, fuck, Scott. You’re so deep.”

His hands grip her hips, and he plants his feet on the bed so he can fuck up against her. It takes a while for him to get the rhythm right, but he’s nothing if not determined. He rubs her clit with his thumb, tight and sure circles, and her walls flutter around him. She practically sobs his name.

The sun’s risen over the horizon now, and as he watches her, sunlight glows around her like the haloes of saints in stained glass windows. She’s bright and burning and the only thing worth seeing.

He’s felt on edge since the beginning, but his desperation to see her through first keeps him holding on. She was careful at first, but he finds it just as sexy to see her lose control, riding him harder, and deeper, and faster. One of her hands pinching and tugging her nipple and the other braced on his chest, just an inch or so from where his heart is racing.

“Scott, I—I—” she keens and splinters and shivers around him, and he’s finally able to give in to the burning, aching place he’d been holding himself back from. He sees Tessa, burning brighter than the sun, but he keeps his eyes open as long as he can.

He opens his eyes to Tessa’s hand in his hair, the other gentle and still at his shoulder. “Hi.” She’s flushed, messy-haired, and never more beautiful.

“Hi.” He places his hand on the back of her neck, guides her close enough to kiss so he does. He’s so thankful his first time is with her.

When she’s brought him to the airport, several hours later, him and his luggage dropped off, he tells her goodbye and kisses her cheek. He feels like a part of him is missing as he’s walking away.

(He doesn’t know that in a car, driving away from, she’s sitting there feeling exactly the same thing.)

–

She wakes up to the faint sound of piano keys. 

It’s that pocket of time between evening and night, quiet and drowsy and lilting, the sort that feels like it could stretch forever. She reaches for the space across from her and she knows before she feels the emptiness that Scott’s not there. It’s warm to the touch, though, so he can’t have been gone long. It’s becoming more common, these interludes of theirs, but they never leave without telling the other they’re going.

The gentle ring of piano keys sounds again, a little louder. She thinks she knows where he is.

She gets up, rubbing her eyes and stretching, padding to the nook of her house where she keeps her piano. Sure enough, Scott’s there.

“Tess.” Always, always, he knows it’s her without turning around.

“Can’t sleep?” She sits beside him on the piano stool, leaning into him because she’s still feeling sleepy. He chuckles, a rumbling sound that echoes in a space in her chest.

“Something like that.” He plays a few chords, perfect and plagal cadences, breaking them down in arpeggios. They’ve always joked that because piano isn’t their main instrument, there’s a lot more leeway in being bad at it. Not that Scott’s bad at piano. His skill extends beyond above-average, but she supposes he thinks of it like that because it doesn’t compare to what he can do on the violin.

He transitions smoothly into a familiar melody and she smiles against his shoulder.

She still remembers going to see ‘Moulin Rouge!’ with him when it first came out, being utterly enthralled by the music and the costumes and the splendour, completely taken by Christian and Satine’s love story even in all its tragedy. She’d been sobbing by the time the credits had rolled.

Scott pauses as he finishes the intro, her usual cue. She lifts her head, wordlessly asking ‘ _ Do I really have to? _ ’ but he just gives her that boyish grin.  _ Of course, T. _

“Never knew I could feel like this, like I’ve never seen the sky before,” she sings, the melody is as familiar as the back of her hand. She knows she’s not the best singer by miles, but Scott is the only person she’s actually willing to sing in front of.

His voice is just as questionable as hers, anyway. 

He joins in, exaggeratedly singing his parts that she has to stop singing because of how much she’s laughing. “Scott, stop!” she hisses, because they can’t be too loud at this point of the night. It doesn’t work.

He lightens and slows by the time they get to the end, he’s singing softly, “Come what may, I will love you, until my dying day.”

There’s a moment, when he looks at her as he’s singing that line, that she realises. She will never love anyone the way she loves him. No one will ever love her the way he does. There’s a Scott-shaped part of her heart, sewn through and patchworked with all her memories of him.

It terrifies her. She's never needed someone, a romantic partner, to complete her. But she always thought she'd have the chance, one day, to find that special someone. What if she never does?

She knows how much she loves Scott, this incomprehensible, indefinable thing, and any girl who he chooses to be his forever better love him just as much. Well, almost as much. She doesn't think anyone could ever match hers, nurtured and grown over literal years. 

How do they find someone else that compares? 

She feels untethered and unmoored, a raft in a tumultuous ocean that she's just realised she's on. 

"Kiddo?" Scott interrupts her train of thought. "You okay?" 

"Yeah," she smiles weakly, taking his hand, tracing the lines of his palm. "I'm okay."

She could never regret him. If it was the choice between Scott as her best friend and the possibility of falling in love with some perfect person, she'd choose him. It's Scott, always Scott. 

-

He doesn't think there's a better sight than seeing Tessa in just his clothes. 

It's cliché and borderline-caveman of him but it doesn't change how much he loves the sight of Tessa right now, in just his button down. 

It takes everything in him not to pull her back against him, tease his hands up his shirt and the soft skin of her thighs, do everything he knows to elicit her whimpers and moans, but he manages. They  _ had _ tired each other out last night. 

It's like Tessa knows exactly what he's thinking when she looks over her shoulder, biting her bottom lip like the vixen she is. 

"Tess," he groans, burying his head in her neck and she giggles. "I'm  _ trying _ to be good."

"Sorry, sorry," she climbs out of his lap, stretching in a way that doesn't make it easier for him. Scratch that, he tugs her back and she falls easily against him.

They trade short, soft kisses and longer, languid ones, and Tess is pressing and moving against him in a downright dirty way. His hands have just undone the first button on his shirt when Tessa pulls back, startled. 

"Shit, Scott, have you been practising? Your violin, I mean." A thoroughly guilty expression has settled on her face and he wants to kiss it away. "I haven't been taking up too much of your time, have I? Fuck, I have." She doesn't give him time to answer. 

"T, it's okay. I've been practising. I haven't slacked off because of us." He couldn't bear it on his conscience if Tessa felt guilty because of his decline in performance. "You're important to me, T. I'll always make time for you. You don't have to feel guilty about it." 

She still looks worried so he settles on a compromise. "If I grab my violin right now, would you feel better?" 

"What if I go, right now?" she counters. "Leave you to your space.” 

"Please don't go." He blurts out. "I mean, you can, obviously, if you'd much rather go. But I want you to stay, please."

He can see her resolve weakening, but he waits for her fondly exasperated smile before he goes to find his violin case. 

"Any requests?" he jokes, as he's making sure the strings are in tune. 

"Just whatever you need to actually practise?" 

"Okay, okay," he brings it up to his shoulder, closing his eyes as he begins to play. 

He opens his eyes in the middle of playing, catching the vivid green of her eyes. Tessa has heard him play what feels like a million times by now, and she's seen him naked more times now than what he can count on one hand, but she’s never looked at him like this. Like somehow, she can see every single facet of him and there’s nothing left for him to hide.

He doesn’t close his eyes after that.

The last sweep of his bow comes too soon and he lets the note linger in the space between them, putting his violin down slowly across his lap.

“Is it okay if I play something?” she asks it softly, carefully, because like every musician, it’s an unspoken rule that you can’t just go around touching and holding other people’s instruments. But he nods and holds it out to her.

He’d feel uncomfortable if it was anyone else playing his violin, because it’s a part of him. But there isn’t a part of him that he doesn’t trust with Tessa.

She reaches out to touch it, careful but sure, propping it on her shoulder, testing out a D on an open string. She plays his violin like she fucks him; gentle and soft when he needs it, passionate and almost recklessness when he wants it. His heart in her hands.

It happens like this.

He loves her, he knows that, a fact of him as fundamental as the colour of his eyes and the callouses on his fingertips. But it’s not until now, Tessa wearing his shirt, first button undone, playing his violin and holding a part of him, that he realises.

Often in classical pieces, there’s this yearning to resolve to the tonic note, no matter what you do or where you go, you want to come back home. When it happens, it is a sigh and a revelation. 

It happens like that, and that is what it feels like.

He realises he’s in love with Tessa and it’s like a sigh.  _ It’s you, it’s always been you. _

He realises he’s in love with Tessa and it’s like a revelation.  _ It’s you, and I haven’t realised until now because I hadn’t realised falling in love doesn’t need to be this monumental thing. _

_ It’s you, and I’m home. _

–

“Tessa!” She’s greeted by an exuberant Alma Moir at the door, and the older woman immediately envelops her in one of her trademark hugs.

“Hi, Alma. How are you?” She hugs her back just as tight, this woman who’s been so much like a second mother through the years.

“Good, good. I’m happy you were able to make it.” Her warm, kind eyes are shining bright in the light of the doorway. “I know everyone here will be happy to see you.”

All these years of her being a pseudo-member of the Moirs and she’s still awestruck at the thought of all these people, in addition to her own family, who she loves and who love her.

“Scott, especially,” Alma adds, as she steps aside to let Tessa in, and Tessa feels her cheek heat. She’s pretty sure that Alma doesn’t know about her current arrangement with Scott, but mothers have an omniscient ability when it comes to their kids that she’s terrified Alma knows the exact nature of what she and Scott have been doing.

There’s nothing reproachful in Alma’s tone or expression so Tessa allows herself to breathe easier.

“I brought your favourite wine,” she says, hoping to divert the conversation safely away.

“I know you’re my favourite for a reason, Tess.” Alma jokes, kissing her temple before taking the bottle from her.

She’s swept up in all the Moirs soon enough, Danny and Charlie bounding over to her and sweeping her up in enthusiastic hugs with a yell of 'Big Hands!' (she’d always run cold, especially when she was younger, and had resorted to wearing huge mittens in the cold of auditoriums and concert halls, and the nickname stuck), their wives shooing them away as they fold Tessa in their conversation, catching her up on the latest gossip, all the kids finding her at intermittent times, but all of them with toothy grins, an 'Auntie T!' accompanying it, along with a lightning-quick hug around her waist before running off. 

Then it's Scott who finds her. Scott with his soft smiles, and his arms waiting for her to fall into, her name on his lips. 

Her favourite hello. 

The scent of him, his cologne and something purely Scott, the feel of him beneath her hands, and the way his lips brush her neck make her shiver, a shot of desire coursing through her veins. Because she’s missed  _ him _ , all of him that she gets to have when they've stripped their bodies bare. She's missed the way he makes her feel, all the ways he makes her body sing.

His blown pupils and the way his fingertips press roughly into the skin revealed by the open back of her dress tell her he feels the same way. They can’t though, not here.

By the time she looks around, the two of them have been left alone, Danny's Tessa and Nicole off in a conversation with other people. That seems to be par for the course at any event that where Tessa and Scott are both there. 

Scott walks beside her with a hand on the bare skin of her back. She knew this dress was a good idea. "D'you bring your violin, T?" 

She rolls her eyes at him. Like that was even a question. It's become tradition now, ever since they were little, that they play a duet every time there's a family event where they're both present, whether it's just the Moirs, just the Virtues, or one of the quintessential joint Virtue-Moir gatherings.

It's her favourite thing to do on her violin, to play duets with Scott. 

"Are we going for a classic tonight? Canon in D?" It's the first duet they ever learned to play and she's feeling sentimental tonight. 

His bright, broad grin is the only answer she needs. 

All the kids have brought their respective instruments for the requisite concert that happens whenever their family gathers together like this, and she joins in with the rest of the Moirs in cheering on every single one of them. There are stumbles and stutters but ultimately they all finish with proud smiles. Tessa hopes they never lose that love of music shining in their eyes. 

Even Alma and Joe join in, Joe bringing out his double bass. She still remembers being nine and so intimidated by the size of the instrument, but Joe has always been one of the kindest, gentlest men she knows. Traits he's passed onto his son. 

Alma finishes up her Mozart Sonata on the piano with a flourish and a bow, cheerily announcing it's time for their finale, "Tessa and Scott!" 

It's Scott who gets up first, holds out his hand for her to take. She takes it and he pulls her to her feet. They have to take their time to tune their violins, Tessa taking longer than Scott because she plays it a lot less often than he does. Scott teases her good-naturedly for it, which makes most of the kids laugh. She pauses in her tuning to elbow him hard in the ribs, which makes the kids laugh harder.

Once she’s finished, she puts her violin on her shoulder and looks over at him. 

And they begin.

It’s the sort of thing that’s easy to get lost in, like something quiets and settles within her. When the harmonies and melodies meld, the notes smooth when they need to be, sharp and crisp when that’s what’s needed. It’s joy she feels when she plays with him, that spreads throughout her body right to the tips of her fingers and down to her toes, like waterfalls of sunlight making her radiant from within.

He meets her eyes as it’s coming to an end and neither of them look away. Their final notes sound throughout the quiet space.

The Moirs’ applause end their shared moment, and the two of them take their bows.

Alma serenely comments that Canon in D is usually played at weddings and Tessa chokes on air. She’d been so sure that Alma didn’t suspect anything but a comment like that sounds too pointed to be ignored. In a panic, she looks to Scott, even though she realises as she's done it that it probably would make things look more suspicious.

He’s got a faraway look in his eyes, but snaps to the present after a beat too long. “Maybe I’ll play it at Tess’ wedding, Ma,” he tells Alma, patting his mom’s shoulder. He throws her a joking grin, but it feels just the slightest bit off. She wonders what he was thinking that distracted him for a second back then.

It doesn’t take long for all the kids to start crashing, the party starting to die down. Tessa, as always, tries to help clean up, and she gets away with it for a few minutes before Alma shoos her away.

Scott pulls her away to his childhood bedroom, a long-standing tradition because he knows she needs space to breathe after being around a lot of people, even if those people are practically her second family. There’s a keep-the-door-open rule, she’s pretty sure, particularly enforced during their pre-teen and teen years, but it had never really been a rule that was needed.

By the thrum in her veins that matches Scott’s pulse, she knows that what’s about to happen is what that rule is meant to prevent.

She’s never been more thankful that his room is tucked away on the second floor of the house, far away enough that no one should hear them. They’ll just have to be quiet. Which will be hard because she knows how noisy she gets, especially with him.

He opens the door and she closes it behind her. “T—” he begins, but she tugs him down against her, kisses him filthy, holding him close against her, muffling all her moans and keens and whimpers into his mouth. She’s the one who has to pull back first, gasping for air and she blushes at her forwardness and desperation.

“Sorry,” she whispers, toying with the top button of his shirt.

"Don't be sorry, T. That was hot," he confesses as he licks and nips his way down her neck.

She sincerely hopes he’s not leaving any marks because there is no way she can explain this to his family downstairs.

He doesn’t linger too long on her neck, his hands moving to tease her breasts. She takes his hand and brings it to the nape of her neck, to the clasp. His clever fingers undo it, the top part of her dress pooling to her waist. His stupid hot mouth latches onto her nipple and sucks, and she bites her lip hard to stop from making any noise.

He’s on his knees, pushing her dress up and bunching it at her hips, nosing at the sensitive skin of her inner thighs, his breath ghosting over her sex.

He pauses and she’s not sure why. She bucks her hips up, whimpers his name, he presses a hand firmly on her waist, pressing her against the door. Fuck, that’s hot.

“Quiet, Tess,” he murmurs, low and commanding, and she trembles from pure desire. Fuck, that’s hotter.

He kisses her pussy lightly, over the lace of her panties, doing nothing to sate her ache, just builds it up higher and higher. She’s just about done with all his teasing, and she buries her hands in his hair to push him where she wants him most.

Except he pulls back, covers her hands with his own and extricates it from his dark strands. “Uh-uh, Tess. Hands up.” Jesus Christ, where is this side of him coming from? She’s got no complaints though—she feels like she’s on the verge of coming and he’s barely touched her. She submits to his command, lifting her hands over her head.

“Good girl.” A bolt of heat goes straight to her sex at his words, his tongue licking her, deep and long. As a reward, she thinks. She’ll do anything he asks to get him to do that again.

He tugs her panties aside, hooking one of her legs over his shoulders as he spreads her with his fingers, lapping at her, his nose against her clit. She thinks she’s about to die when he pulls back again, just as she’s about to come.

_ I like—anticipation _ , she remembers telling him way back at the start of all this, and she realises she’s only got herself to blame for the current, desperate state she’s in.

“Scott,” she grits between her teeth, barely above a whisper, “please.”

She can tell she’s got a wicked grin on him, just a touch cocky, even in the dark. He only waits a second longer before he moves back in again, tongue tracing around her clit as his sharp jaw presses hard against her thigh, sucks on her as he fucks one, then two fingers in her.

She’s so fucking close. 

Until he pulls completely off of her again.

She sobs his name, far too loud for how precariously risky their location is. This pleasure bordering on pain is almost too much for her to handle.

“Shhh, Tess,” he’s gliding his palms up and down her legs. She thinks it’s meant to soothe but it just keeps her on edge. “Been so good for me,” he murmurs, and she clenches around nothing at his praise. He shifts her leg on his shoulder, spreading her obscenely wider, his hands going around to cup her ass, his fingers gripping her flesh roughly. He dives back in, licking and sucking and kissing and nipping. Prolonging her pleasure has her immediately teetering on the edge, but she tenses and holds back, waiting.

She knows the game now.

He’s moved one of his hands back to her cunt, two fingers thrusting at an increasing pace, lips wrapped around her clit.

“More, please,” she whimpers, a barely-there and high-pitched exhale.

“More? As you wish,” there’s a wink in his voice that usually makes her smile, but as he slips a third finger, stretching her and filling her up, curls his fingers just so and grazing his teeth lightly against her clit, she breaks around him, the dam bursting, the feeling flooding throughout her body.

She’s too weak to hold herself up, slides down against the door and he catches and cradles her spent body.

“Fuck, Scott, where did that come from? That was—” She’s got no words, her mind too addled to form anything coherent.

“It was good? Not too much?” She looks up to see his face open and concerned that he’d pushed her too far.

“No, not too much. Never too much. I’ve never—it’s never been like that. That—intense. In a good way. In the best way.”

“Good,” he breathes in relief. “I know you like anticipation and the build-up, but I wasn’t sure that you weren’t actually going to murder me.” He laughs into her hair.

“For a while, I thought I might.” She becomes aware of his hardness pressed against her. She grazes her palm along it, his body jerking. “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. It’ll be too messy.”

She raises an eyebrow. “This’ll be really hard to explain downstairs.”

He winces. “If we wait long enough, it’ll go away?” He glances down at her, lingering on her bare chest and starts to pull the top of her dress together. “Maybe not with you looking like that, though.”

She palms him harder, insistent. No way is she letting him suffer when he’s made her come harder than she ever had before. “Let me use my mouth, then,” she smirks. “Won’t be messy.”

“I’ll mess up your make-up. And your hair.” She loves that he’s concerned, but he wants her to, she can tell, from his grip on her hips, the rapidness of the rise and fall of his chest.

“Please, Scott,” she whispers, high and breathy. She takes his hand and rubs his thumb against her lips. “It’s lip stain. It won’t smudge. But you need to keep your hands to yourself.”

He growls, this low rumble. She’s got him: hook, line and sinker. She wants him to succumb to the same aching, burning fire he’d led her to. With Scott, she’s discovered sex to be a place where she could receive as much, if not more than, what she’s been given. It hasn’t always been like that with previous partners, and Scott’s passion and dedication to her pleasure? That’s something she wants to return ten-fold.

Not because she feels obliged to. But because she just wants to.

So when he agrees, loosens his hold on her, she wastes no time to unbutton and unzip his pants, tugging his boxer-briefs down and getting her mouth and lips and tongue on him. There’s no time to tease and prolong because they’ve been gone for too long already, so she uses everything she’s got in her arsenal that she knows he likes. He does not, for the record, keep his hands to himself. But she doesn’t really want to move his hands from where he’s holding onto her hair, guiding her as she takes as much of him as she can. She’s pretty sure her loose curls are artfully messy enough that this won’t ruin them completely.

He pants her name as he comes, tipping his head back and squeezing his eyes shut.

She misses him seeking her eyes out the moments before he comes, but she focuses on soothing touches to ground him instead.

Before they slip out of his room, he hugs her tight, an embrace awash with gratitude and affection and something else she can’t quite name, but it all combines in the same feeling that she gets when she’s with Scott: safe and cozy and warm.

His lips are unsteady against her neck, like he’s saying something; the motion repeating, like he’s saying something over and over again.

She doesn’t push and ask what the words are, just holds him close and hopes that he’ll share them with her if he needs to, if he’s ready.

–

She falls in love in the in-between.

In between moments, in between blinks, in between breaths.

She’d been texting Scott, since he was off in some other corner of the globe. China, this time. 

(He might have spent one night recounting his favourite places, promising into her skin all the places he needs to take her to, one day, if she’d like? Once she’s done with her thesis, she’d promised back. She wants to see the world with him, see the beauty of the world through his eyes.) 

He’d texted her a photo of one dog he’d met, him cuddled with the bundle of fur with his scrunched-up smile. Another selfie of him posed at the Great Wall, which she appreciates because she knows he hates selfies. A series of texts of him panicking about saying the wrong thing in Chinese.

It’s in between texts that she thinks,  _ God, I love you. _

It’s far from the first time she’s thought it, and she’s lost count of the number of times she’s said it to him, but it is the first time that it hits her with a jolt, like a burst of static, like a note played sforzando.

_ I love you.  _

It’s the first time that she realises.

_ I’m in love with you. _

It makes sense now, her worries about never finding anyone else who was going to compare to him. It makes sense now, her realisation she was never ever going to love anyone the way she loves him. She’d just never realised, until now, that the way she loves him included this part too. The part where she wishes she was his, and he was hers, in every single possible way.

She'd thought the way she loved him was different from the usual, cliché falling-in-love. 

That yes, they had the trust, built over years of having each other, over highs and lows and fights and forgiveness. That yes, they had the care, always wanting to see the other shine, and being there when they fall, having the other's hand to hold. That yes, they'd uncovered the attraction and the lust, the pleasure and the primal, each time better than the last. 

She never thought she'd have the whole picture, not in how she felt for Scott. 

She hadn't realised she already had all the pieces, just waiting to be joined together.

Her phone dings with a flurry of texts from Scott. 

_ virtch  _

_ are you still there? _

_ are you working too hard? _

_ teeeesss _

_ I’m still here _ , she replies, hands shaking.  _ not working too hard, promise. _

_ good _

_ gotta make sure my best friend’s still standing when I get back _

_ I’ll still be standing, don’t worry, _ she replies. She types the next eight letters slowly, half-tempted to press delete, but she doesn’t. 

_ I miss you. _

It’s not the same as saying what she’s realised, but it makes her feel vulnerable all the same.

_ i miss you too _

_ i’ll be back to annoy you before you know it _

_ looking forward to it,  _ she sends.

_ Come home, _ she thinks.

–

The thing about endings is that even if you can see them coming, you wish that you can stay in this moment for one moment longer. You wonder what you’re going to forget, each sight and smell and touch, and you want to commit it all to memory, but maybe you don't need to, not yet, because it might last just that little bit longer. 

Fucking Scott—no, making love to Scott, because isn't that what she's doing, every touch and caress and word whispered into his neck born out of this love in her heart that feels both new but old, delicate yet strong—is something that feels like each time could be the last time. 

When he's stripped her of her clothes excruciatingly slow, brought her to the edge over and over again, not letting her fall but letting her beg, staving off his own pleasure so that he can stoke hers, she's stretched taut as a tuned violin string. Perfectly attuned to exactly one frequency: his.

When he enters her slowly, the thick slide of him drawing out moans from her gasping mouth, her own hand tangled in the dark of his hair and the other tracing the cupid's bow of his lips, she feels complete, like the mediant third and the dominant fifth built on the tonic note to build the full-sounding triad. 

If there was some way to tell what would have happened back when Scott first broached the idea, she wonders if she should've said no. Knowing what she knows now, how much she loves him, how much she's in love with him, if she should never have gone down this path. 

She can’t help but think of why they’re doing this. Because, in its heart of hearts, from the very first conversation that she had with Scott, she’s doing Scott a favour. It's a favour built on trust, and care, and love, a very important love, albeit different from the one stuck all over her heart like sticky notes. 

But the fact remains that Scott doesn't love her the same way she does. One day it’ll be another girl who Scott will touch and kiss and fuck like this, who’ll get to revel in his attentive hands, his talented tongue, his cock.

(She hadn't realised how much it hurts to see something end before it had really begun.)

She loves the sound of her name on his lips when he comes inside her. The ragged whisper, the broken moan, the guttural groan. The five letters leaving his mouth like a curse and an adoration. She feels sick at the thought of another girl’s name leaving his mouth in this way.

She’s crying before she knows it. 

Scott notices, and worries, “T? Hey, what’s wrong? Tell me, am I hurting you?” He draws back, fingertips whispering under her eyes where tears have started to fall. He starts to pull out but Tessa holds onto him, locking her ankles behind his lower back, her hands covering his where he’s catching her tears.

She shakes her head, tracing the bump and ridge of his knuckles, moving her head to kiss his palm. “Never, no, you couldn’t,” she reassures him. She’s terrified and shaken and so fucking scared. A part of her instinctively feels like she should pull away, shut herself up.

But in her heart, she doesn’t want to.

She doesn’t want to because trust is not a double-edged sword, ready to pierce both people the moment it’s broken. It’s his hand holding hers, and his hands holding her, like this, right here and right now. It’s being seen by his eyes and his heart in all her strengths and flaws, and he loves her.

It might not be the same way her heart beats for him, and that’s okay. Polyrhythms are intricately beautiful in their own complex way. If one day he finds that special girl whose heartbeat perfectly matches his, she’d go through heartache and heartbreak, but she’d ultimately support him, because all she wants is for him to be happy. 

“Tess,” he whispers, concerned lines etched on his face, “what’s wrong? Can you tell me?” Even in the darkness, she can still his eyes darting all over her face, searching for any signs of what she’s thinking.

She takes a shaky breath, her hands finding his jaw. He takes her cue and looks straight into her eyes. She looks at him and lets him see everything she’s been holding in the aching spaces of her chest. Her trembling, overwhelming, imperfect love echoing in the beat of her heart, shining in the greens of her eyes, making her hands shake in the way she’s touching him. 

_ I love you. I love you. I love you. _

“Oh,” Scott stills, the word leaving him in breathless awe. “Tess,” there’s a smile threatening to break out across his lips, and her fingertips follow the curve of his mouth as he falls into it. He’s smiling in the same way he always has when he’s smiling at her, it’s nothing new, but it’s like her vulnerability becomes her clarity.

It’s her smile, and it makes her believe that maybe, just maybe, her heart’s been beating to the same rhythm as his. That he could feel the same way.

“Tessa,” he’s impossibly close, and from this distance she sees that everything she’s feeling that’s shining in her eyes is mirrored in his. He leans in, captures her lips, kissing her, soft and slow and languid. “I love you, too. I’m in love with you, too.” He kisses down to the crook of her neck, feeling his smile against her humming skin, and back up again. “It feels like I’ve always been. You’re here,” he takes her hand and places it over his heart. “You’re in all the music I hear.”

She takes a deep, steadying breath and she’s still trembling a little but it’s more from this unbridled joy that feels like it’s bursting from somewhere deep inside her. “I love you, Scott. I’m in love with you.” She lets out a sound that sounds like both a laugh and a cry, and he kisses her again, and again, like he can drink in all her happiness and love from her lips. All her happiness and joy because of him.

He shifts slightly, draws back enough to make her whimper. “Scott.”

“I’ve got you, T.” He kisses her as he pushes back in. He starts off slow, the way he had before but soon their rhythm picks up in pace as she pushes and grinds up against him, her nails digging into his back.

“Scott, please, I need—” she loses the rest of her sentence on a moan as Scott reaches in between them to stroke her clit in time with his thrusts, touching her in exactly the way she needs, because he knows her. He’s known her in a million different ways, and he knows her in this way now.

She grazes his scalp with her nails, knowing how much he likes that, tugs on it firmly. She plants her feet on the bed so she can thrust up in time with him, whimpering as she dances closer and closer to the edge. “Scott,” she breathes, waits until he’s looking into her eyes. She cups his jaw, whispers, “I love you.”

He cries her name when he comes, no melody ever sounding as sweet, and the way he looks when he comes, face contorted as he succumbs to the greatest pleasure, because of her, is all that it takes for her to follow him.

The next thing she’s aware of are his lips softly peppering kisses all over her face. She opens her eyes.

“There you are.” A kiss on her nose. Her smile on his lips. “Lost you for a second.”

She shakes her head at how cocky he sounds, a huff falling from her lips.

He chuckles, grin turning bashful. His weight is warm and solid and deliciously heavy on top of her, and she hopes he doesn’t move for a while.

“Hey, T?”

“Mmm?”

“I love you.”

She smiles wider than what she can remember smiling, can’t resist tipping her chin up for him to kiss her again. She pulls away first, pressing her lips together, looking down at a spot near his collarbone. “I’m sorry it took me so long to realise it.”

“Hey, hey, no apologies. It took me a while too. To realise.” He sweeps strands of her hair away from her face in a tender caress. “I’m just...so fucking happy that we got here. That you feel the same way.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He rolls off of her eventually, disposes of the condom, but gets back into bed as soon as he can. She ends up on top of him, his hand stroking her hair in a blissful touch, his other hand splayed and warm on her back.

“Hey, T.”

“Mmm?” She’s so close to falling asleep, feeling so sated and peaceful here in the cradle of Scot’s arms.

“You know,  _ technically _ , I said I’m in love with you first.”

She jolts upwards, lifting her head up to see the twinkle in his eye and the smirk on his mouth.

“You did not! You said ‘I’m in love with you  _ too _ ’. You said ‘too’, Scott! That implies that you understood me first,” she fires back.

“Taking advantage of the fact that I can understand what you’re saying from the look in your eyes, huh, Virtch.”

He’s looking at her with so much affection and love that she softens against him, laughing against his chest. “Yep, sorry we had more than a decade of friendship and history to fall back on.”

He chuckles along with her, his fingers tracing her jawline and her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose with such tenderness that she has to scoot up to capture his lips in another kiss.

It doesn’t matter who said it first, anyway.

All that matters is that they’ve finally understood the song the other’s heart was singing just for them; a melody they’d heard for a long time, but once they listened properly, realised was the same love song, in its truest and purest form, all along.

–

He finds blank manuscript paper as soon as he can.

_ Would you ever do that? Write someone a love song? _

Scott takes his pencil and at the top, writes two words:  _ For Tessa _ .

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes:
> 
> The title of this fic is taken from the poem that Mahler left his wife, Alma, on a copy of the manuscript of ‘Adagietto’. The English translation goes:
>
>> In which way I love you, my sunbeam  
> I cannot tell you with words  
> Only my longing, my love and my bliss  
> Can I with anguish declare. 
> 
> You can see the manuscript [here](https://www.omifacsimiles.com/brochures/mahler_ad.html)
> 
> One of my favourite Ted Talks is [The transformative power of classical music](https://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_the_transformative_power_of_classical_music) by Benjamin Zander. In it, he talks about how the journey of pieces is often a journey home and I fell in love with that analogy. It comprised the main metaphor for how this universe’s Scott fell in love with his Tessa, because I’m a goner for the idea that falling in love is like the feeling of coming home.
> 
> Scott being able to tell it’s Tessa even when his eyes are closed while he’s playing the violin or the piano is my deliberate nod to Cassandra Clare’s ‘The Infernal Devices’ trilogy (one of my favourites to reread), particularly, this quote from chapter 5 of the first book:
>
>> His eyes were closed. “Will?” he said without opening his eyes or ceasing to play. “Will, is that you?” 
> 
> As always, you can find me as [stardust_echoes](https://twitter.com/stardust_echoes) on twitter and as [echoesofstardust](https://echoesofstardust.tumblr.com/) on tumblr
> 
> Wishing you a lovely day! <3


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